It's middle of the road point-makers like this who make car drivers so angry about cyclists. pic.twitter.com/4vCcK548t1 — Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) January 10, 2014

Though it is a tweeted photograph by Jeremy Clarkson which sits at the top of this post, it’s not about Clarkson, not directly, anyway. This is about something far, far more important: the lack of knowledge among too many British drivers about how, and why, cyclists position themselves on the road.

Clarkson is, however, a great example of this phenomenon. On Friday, he tweeted the photo above to his 2.7m followers, with the message:

It's middle of the road point-makers like this who make car drivers so angry about cyclists.

The details of what happened before Clarkson leaned out from his Range Rover window to take the photograph are disputed. In a follow-up tweet the Top Gear presenter alleged that the rider involved, “rode constantly right in the middle of the lane and hurled abuse at anyone who overtook”.

A very different scenario was described yesterday by someone posting anonymously on the Singletrack magazine web forum who said, with a fair bit of circumstantial detail to back him up, that he was the cyclist involved. He admitted swearing at a man in a Range Rover he later realised was Clarkson as he rode near Sloane Square in central London, but said this happened after Clarkson overtook him and forced his bike into the kerb as the car had to veer left to avoid a traffic island.

The details of the incident aren’t so much what concerns me here, nor is the fact, as pointed out by many on social media, that by using a phone in his car, even when not moving, Clarkson seemingly broke the law. I’m similarly unbothered by the fact it was Clarkson involved, other than the fact he’s well known and can transmit his views to a lot of people.

The key for me is that this is a classic example of something cyclists face on an almost daily basis: the mistaken belief by some drivers that bikes should hug the kerb.

We’ve covered this before, and the guidance is very clear. Transport for London’s cycle safety advice sums it up well:

Stay central on narrow roads. Try to ride away from the gutter. If the road is too narrow for vehicles to pass you safely, it might be safer to ride towards the middle of the lane to prevent dangerous overtaking by other vehicles.

There are all sorts of reasons for taking the lane. Often, a cyclist might ride centrally to keep at least a car door’s width from parked vehicles. It might be because there is a central road island coming up and the rider wants to make sure they’re not suddenly pushed into the kerb by an overtaking car. It could be to pass the message to those behind: this is a narrow (or twisty) road, there’s no space to squeeze past, you’re going to have to overtake me as you would a car.

It’s pretty simple stuff, but it’s amazing how many drivers cannot grasp it. Let’s look again at the Clarkson photo. It’s a narrow road, with parked cars. Even if the cyclist was squeezed onto the kerb, passing them in the same lane – especially in a car as big as a Range Rover – would involve a dangerous squeeze. Plus, of course, they’re approaching a junction. In the Singletrack post the cyclist says he was positioning himself to turn right. But even if he wasn’t, frankly that’s where I’d put myself on my bike there anyway.

I can just about forgive some drivers for not knowing the rules and reasons for cyclists taking the lane. On Friday I was cycling home through south London when a driver tooted at me for being “too far away from the kerb”. At the next red light I tried to explain what I’d been doing and why. He seemed genuinely baffled but apologetic.

What I can’t forgive are the dangerous maneouvres that sometimes follow. Squeezing past a cyclist carries a clear message: not only do I believe you are in the wrong, but I believe my righteousness is justification for putting your physical wellbeing in danger. I believe my right to reach the next red traffic light about five seconds earlier than I would have otherwise trumps the rights of your loved ones to welcome you home tonight in one piece. It sounds dramatic, but that's what it amounts to, and it appalls me.

That is why I have remarkably little patience for campaigns like the recent one by police in London in which, among other things, officers pulled over cyclists who were not breaking the law to “advise” them to wear high vis jackets. If I’d been on the receiving end of such advice my response would have been pretty robust: it’s not the tiny number of drivers who don’t properly see me that worry me as a cyclist, it’s the significantly greater numbers who do, but just don’t give a damn.

You can theorise all day about how we’ve ended up with a society in which people wrapped up inside a tin box decide, consciously or otherwise, that their self-presumed right to unimpeded progress is more important than another human’s physical safety, but it’s hard to argue that this isn’t the case. Just look at too many of the comments under Clarkson’s tweets.

The question is, what do we do about it? The obvious answer is more education, explicitly teaching such ideas in driving tests. I’d go further, and argue for everyone who learns to drive, where physically capable, to take several stages of the Bikeability cycle training course as an integral part of their training.

Finally I’d love to see Britain adopt a form of what’s known as a strict liability. This is for civil disputes, rather than criminal cases, but entrenches in law what is, for me, the most important single element of road safety: the notion that each road user has a desperately important duty of care towards more vulnerable road users. It would apply as much to cyclists interacting with pedestrians as cars with cyclists.

I know some people, including a number of cyclists, don’t like the idea of strict liability. I also know from previous chats with cycling ministers, including the incumbent, Robert Goodwill, that it’s very, very unlikely to happen in Britain anyway, so it’s somewhat moot.

In the meantime, I suppose, I face years more of explaining, as patiently as I can, to puce-faced motorists how I am not being a “point-maker”, as Clarkson puts it. I am just trying to stay safe.