The Highway Code asks for at least 1.5 metres when you pass a cyclist at up to 30mph, and more above that. On most East London roads that means you cannot pass without using some of the other lane, which means you wait. Rule H3 then covers the other half of the problem, which is turning across someone going straight on.
Cyclists are not an occasional feature of East London roads. On Whitechapel Road, Mare Street, Roman Road and most of the corridor between the City and Stratford, there will be one within a hundred metres of you for most of any journey. The rules that govern how you deal with them are precise, and two of them specify distances.
Rule 163 And The 1.5 Metres
One and a half metres is wider than most drivers picture. It is roughly half the width of a typical traffic lane, measured from the cyclist rather than from the kerb. If a rider is a metre out from the parked cars, which is what they are advised to do, and you leave 1.5 metres beyond them, your car is occupying road that belongs to the other lane.
That is not an argument against the rule. It is the point of the rule. On a single-lane road with oncoming traffic, the arithmetic tells you that you cannot overtake yet, and the correct response is to sit behind at the cyclist's speed until the road gives you room.
Rule 163 also opens with a general principle worth having: give cyclists, motorcyclists and horse riders "at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car". If you would not squeeze past a car with six inches to spare, do not do it to a person on a bike.
When You Cannot Give 1.5 Metres
This is where the rule turns into a driving decision rather than a fact to remember. Three situations come up constantly in East London:
- Parked cars on your left, cyclist in the gap, traffic coming the other way. You wait. The wait is usually ten or fifteen seconds and it feels like a minute.
- A pinch point, build-out or traffic island. Do not start an overtake you cannot finish. If the island is close enough that you would be squeezing them into the kerb, stay behind it.
- A cyclist in the middle of the lane. Rule 213 recognises this: "On narrow sections of road, on quiet roads or streets, at road junctions and in slower-moving traffic, cyclists may sometimes ride in the centre of the lane, rather towards the side of the road." A rider in the centre of a narrow lane is usually telling you there is no safe room to pass. Read it as information rather than as obstruction.
The habit that makes all three easy is to decide before you commit. Look at the gap, look at the oncoming traffic, and if the answer is not obviously yes, hold your position. Half an overtake is far worse than none.
It is also one of the easier things to build in traffic with an instructor calling it, which is most of what an hour of automatic lessons on a road like Mare Street is for.
Rule H3 And Turning Across
The passing distance covers what happens alongside. H3 covers what happens when your paths cross.
H3, added to the Highway Code in January 2022, says you should not cut across cyclists, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles going ahead when you are turning into or out of a junction, whether they are in a cycle lane, on a cycle track or riding ahead on the road.
Rule 211 puts the same thing in more concrete terms: "Do not turn at a junction if to do so would cause the cyclist going straight ahead to stop or swerve, just as you would do with a motor vehicle."
The left hook is the specific danger. You are turning left; a cyclist is coming up on your nearside going straight on; you turn across them. It is the most common serious collision type between drivers and cyclists in urban traffic, and it happens overwhelmingly to drivers who signalled correctly and checked their mirror once, early.
The wider hierarchy that H3 belongs to, and what changed in 2022, is set out in the Highway Code hierarchy of road users explained.
Why The Nearside Mirror Is Not Enough
A door mirror shows you the lane beside you at a moment in time. Two things defeat it.
The first is the blind spot. A cyclist travelling faster than you in slow traffic can move from behind you into the space beside your rear door in the two or three seconds between your mirror check and your turn. The mirror was accurate and is now out of date.
The second is that mirrors are aimed for cars. A rider close to the kerb, low and narrow, sits in the part of the frame drivers habitually skim past.
The sequence that actually works on a road with a cycle lane:
- Mirror early, as you plan the turn.
- Signal, giving anyone behind time to read it.
- Mirror again as you slow.
- A shoulder check over your left shoulder immediately before the turn, with your head, not just your eyes.
- Then turn.
That last check is the one that gets skipped, and it is the one that matters. Rule 182 makes the reasoning explicit for left turns: "watch out for traffic coming up on your left before you make the turn", and warns that "cyclists, motorcyclists and other road users in particular may be hidden from your view".
Cycle Lanes: Solid Lines And Broken Ones
Rule 140 draws the distinction that matters legally. "You MUST NOT drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation." A lane marked with a broken line should not be entered "unless it is unavoidable". Rule 140 also says: "You should give way to any cyclists in a cycle lane, including when they are approaching from behind you."
That last clause is not widely known and it is the one that governs left turns off a road with a cycle lane. A cyclist coming up behind you inside the lane has priority over your turn across it.
| Marking | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Solid white line | MUST NOT drive or park in it during its hours of operation. This is law. |
| Broken white line | Should not be entered unless unavoidable. |
| Either | Give way to cyclists in the lane, including those approaching from behind you. |
Source: The Highway Code, rule 140.
Rule 183 adds one more, for turning left: give way to any vehicles using a bus lane, cycle lane or cycle track "from either direction". Two-way cycle tracks alongside one-way roads are common in Hackney and the City, and a rider can legitimately arrive from the direction you are not looking.
Advanced Stop Lines
The boxes at traffic signals with a bicycle symbol are advanced stop lines, and rule 178 covers them: "Some signal-controlled junctions have advanced stop lines to allow cyclists to be positioned ahead of other traffic. Motorists, including motorcyclists, MUST stop at the first white line reached if the lights are amber or red and should avoid blocking the way or encroaching on the marked area at other times."
Two practical points. Creeping into the box because you arrived just as the light changed is a contravention, not a technicality. And when the light goes green, the riders in front of you are entitled to the time and space to move off, so pulling away tight behind them defeats the whole design.
These boxes are everywhere on the City fringe and along the A11 and A13 corridors, and stopping short of the first line is a habit worth having automatically rather than deciding each time.
The Dutch Reach
Rule 239 covers opening a door: "where you are able to do so, you should open the door using your hand on the opposite side to the door you are opening; for example, use your left hand to open a door on your right-hand side.
This will make you turn your head to look over your shoulder. You are then more likely to avoid causing injury to cyclists or motorcyclists passing you on the road, or to people on the pavement".
The technique is called the Dutch reach and it works because it makes the check physically unavoidable rather than something you have to remember. Reaching across your body rotates your torso and your head toward the window, and you see what is coming whether you meant to look or not.
It matters more in East London than in most places for a simple reason: this is where door zone cycling happens. Rule 212 notes that cyclists are advised to ride at least a door's width or one metre from parked cars, and on streets with a cycle lane painted right up against a parking bay, riders often have nowhere else to go.
Teach yourself the reach on your own car, and teach it to your passengers, because on a two-door drop off on Mare Street the passenger door is the one that opens into the lane.
What This Looks Like On Test
None of the above appears on the driving test as a category called "cyclists". It appears as observation, as response to road markings, as unsafe use of the road, or as an unnecessary hesitancy fault if you overcorrect.
A left turn taken across a cyclist is not marked as a cycling fault; it is marked as a serious or dangerous fault at a junction, and the distinction between those two grades is covered in serious and dangerous faults explained.
If you are close to test and genuinely do not know whether your left turns are safe, that is one of the specific things a mock test will tell you, because it is a fault that feels fine from the driving seat right up until it does not.
The rule of thumb that covers most of it: treat a cyclist as a vehicle with the same rights as a car and a fraction of the protection. That single substitution answers the passing distance, the left turn, the cycle lane and the stop line without having to recall four rules under pressure.
The related London-specific markings that share the same nearside scanning problem are covered in London bus lanes explained, and the wider process of learning to drive in these postcodes is in the complete guide to learning to drive in East London.
Judging 1.5 metres from the driving seat is a calibration problem, and the fastest way to calibrate it is to have someone tell you, repeatedly, whether the gap you just left was enough.
Book automatic lessonsCommon questions about driving near cyclists
How much room must I give a cyclist when overtaking?
Rule 163 asks for at least 1.5 metres when passing at speeds of up to 30mph, and more space at higher speeds. That is measured from the cyclist, not from the kerb, and on most East London roads it means you will need part of the other lane, so you wait for it to be clear.
What if the road is too narrow to leave 1.5 metres?
Then you are not overtaking yet. Stay behind at the cyclist's speed until the road gives you the room. Starting an overtake you cannot complete is worse than not starting one, because it puts you alongside them exactly where the road narrows.
Can I drive in a cycle lane?
Not in one marked by a solid white line during its hours of operation. That carries a MUST NOT under rule 140. A lane marked with a broken line should not be entered unless it is unavoidable, and in either case you should give way to cyclists in the lane, including those coming up from behind you.
What is the Dutch reach?
Opening the car door with the hand furthest from it, so your body turns and you look over your shoulder. Rule 239 recommends it, and the reason it works is that the check becomes automatic rather than something you have to remember.
Why is a mirror check not enough before turning left?
A mirror shows the lane beside you at one moment. A cyclist filtering through slow traffic can move into your blind spot in the two seconds between the check and the turn. Rule 182 specifically warns that cyclists and motorcyclists may be hidden from your view, which is why a shoulder check immediately before the turn is the part that matters.
Do I have to stop behind an advanced stop line?
Yes, when the lights are amber or red you must stop at the first white line you reach. Rule 178 also asks you to avoid encroaching on the marked area at other times, and to give cyclists in it enough time and space to move off when the green shows.
Roads like Whitechapel Road and Mare Street teach this faster than anywhere else, mostly because they give you no choice.
Book automatic lessonsMore in East London road skills
Published 1 September 2026. Prices and DVSA figures are checked when this page is revised. If anything here has changed, ring us and we will confirm it.