Article content

For many users of Ottawa’s bicycle lanes, the rule seems clear: The cyclist heading through an intersection has precedence over the vehicle driver alongside who wants to turn across the bike lane.

For proof, they point to the signs that line some routes instructing turning drivers to give way to bicycles.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Urban cycling: Rules of the turn Back to video

Cycling advocates call a turn by a vehicle across a bicycle’s path a “right hook,” or surprise punch, and in online discussions suggest riding assertively to discourage such moves. “Take the right of way” is a frequent call.

Yet to Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation and even to a traffic engineer who helped design the yield-to-the-right signs, it’s not that simple.

Under provincial law, a cyclist is expected to behave like any other wheeled road user: Obey signals, wait your turn at intersections, give way to pedestrians, never try to pass a right-turning vehicle on the right.

Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act requires “all vehicles, including cyclists, (to) yield the right of way to traffic lawfully using the intersection before proceeding forward,” says Transportation Ministry spokesman Bob Nichols.