Junctions, and the Copenhagen left

You do not turn left the way a car does. Instead you ride straight across the junction, stop at the far corner, turn your bike ninety degrees to face the new direction, and wait for that light. It is called the box turn, or the Copenhagen left, and it exists because merging a cyclist across two lanes of motor traffic to reach a left-turn lane is exactly the manoeuvre that gets people killed. Once you have done it a single time it is second nature.

Red means stop, for cyclists exactly as for drivers. Right on red is permitted only where you can see a specific sign allowing it - a small blue sign with a cycle and an arrow. Most junctions do not have one. Riding through a red light is among the most commonly issued fines to cyclists in this city, and the police do enforce it on ordinary weekday mornings, not just during campaigns.

At a signalled junction you will usually find a stop line for cycles set ahead of the one for cars. Use it. It puts you where drivers can see you rather than in the blind spot beside a bonnet, and it lets you clear the junction before the motor traffic starts moving.

Blue painted squares across a junction mark where your path crosses a vehicle's. They show you the line to follow; they do not clear it for you. And at small junctions with no signs, lights or markings at all, give way to traffic coming from your right - the same rule that applies to cars. A green light means the lights are green, not that the junction is empty: a driver already turning across you still has to be allowed through.