This morning's commute and other commuting stories

He's just getting in an Advanced Strop Line.

More constructively, Jameo, you may not be aware that ASLs are controversial. They were actually conceived not because of a positive desire to help cyclists, but because cyclists have long had poor stop line discipline, i.e. they would (and still do) roll over the stop line to be ahead of drivers. The provision that you now see everywhere was basically designed to stop riders from rolling over the main stop line by introducing a secondary stop line, creating the box that they can enter.

This is a problem because, while there are circumstances when riders are well-advised to go to the front, at other times they very much shouldn't do that--not because they might hold up drivers, but because they may be caught out going down the nearside when the lights change, thus becoming susceptible to left hooks, the main crash risk for cyclists. Also, if you put the box there, it suggests that filtering to the front is always a good idea. Quite apart from the crash risk, it isn't. There's nothing wrong with waiting behind drivers if there are only one or two waiting at the lights, for instance, even if there is an advanced stop box ahead.

Riders need to learn good judgement as to when to filter and when not to filter, which is something that's part of basic cycle training, but many untrained novice and non-novice riders are misled by the existence of infrastructure that's provided for them into believing that they're always 'safer' when they use it. This is something which needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

Hope this explains it a bit.