[praneshp]

Possibly, the car was way ahead of the cycle, covered the bike lane to make a turn, had to wait for perpendicular traffic, and the cyclist saw them and decided to kick in anger instead of waiting.

Edit: Sorry, in my hypothetical scenario, I left out waiting very long for perpendicular traffic and the cyclist showing up legitimately lately.

Clearly, I'm just making up this scenario, and most real life complaints are quite legit.

[cimmanom]

The cycle lane needs to be considered as part of that perpendicular traffic. The fact that so few drivers recognize bike lanes as traffic to be considered when turning is a significant contributor to cycling still being unsafe and mixing zones in particular (where cars turn across bike lanes) prone to cyclist casualties.

[epistasis]

That's not how bike lanes work in California, cars must merge into the bike lane on right turns[1]. Bikes should take the the full lane to the left of the bike lane when overtaking cars that are turning right.

[1] http://www.sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-turns/

[cimmanom]

Yes, and that's dangerous and what's wrong with mixing zones - forcing cyclists to merge with fast-moving cars endangers them. It's much safer to treat bikes like fast-moving pedestrian traffic crossing with the light; let them keep moving and turn perpendicularly across the bike lane.

Yes, that means the car should come to a stop if there are cyclists oncoming, but you'd do the same in courtesy to pedestrians in the crosswalk or to cars coming he other way while you make a left turn.

[closeparen]

When a car is turning right and a bike is continuing straight, the bike is moving much faster than the car, through a narrow and obstructed window, from behind. The chances of the driver seeing you coming are low.

When designed well, the parking lane stops and becomes a turn lane. The car is responsible for merging across the bike lane in one action, and then making the right turn in another. This happens while there is less of a speed differential, and because it pulls over, it's obvious to the bike that it intends to turn right.

The amount of sidewalk you have to scan to see if there will be pedestrians in the crosswalk in the next ~5 seconds is tiny, whereas the amount of bike lane to scan is essentially the whole block.

[rhizome]

How does that allow space for the cyclist to be beside the car door as the turn is being attempted?

[UncleEntity]

People don't look right while making a right turn, they just concentrate on cross traffic and run pedestrians over in the crosswalks all the time. Good luck on a bike.

Where I live there's not a whole lot of bike lanes so you mostly have to ride the sidewalks on the major streets if you don't want to die. I just reach down and thump the side of their car as hard as I can when they do that to me -- probably left some impressive dents.

[rhizome]

It's called a "right hook" in cycling for a car to turn right into a bike without looking.