Do you consider yourself a safe cyclist? I’ve always thought I was fairly safe but I’ve just completed a survey that’s made me wonder.

The survey – at survey.bris.ac.uk/lsbu/cycling_other – asks some general questions and 24 questions specifically about how you would deal with an lorry that’s stopped at a red traffic light.

Would you ride along the nearside or the offside of the lorry? Ride past it on the pavement? Wait behind the lorry until it manoeuvres? And so on.

I ended up confused by all the options. I remembered some research that said cyclists were safer if they actually jumped lights in front of HGVs rather than wait in front of them and risk getting get squashed.

So was the survey asking catch questions? And I can never remember the difference between “nearside” and “offside”. Why can’t they just say “kerbside” and “driver’s side”? “Nearside” it turns out means “side nearest the kerb”.

So my answers to that part of the survey were all “ride along the offside of the lorry”. I don’t know if it’s safe or not to pass stationary or slow-moving vehicles along the median line but it’s what I always do, especially in Cowley Road.

It’s a habit I developed when I used to ride motorbikes in my 20s and it’s one that’s stuck.

Cyclists should never ride along the kerb beside trucks and buses. This is the deadly side of an HGV, because they have a big bike-sized blindspot there.

When they start to move right at a junction, steer well clear. They could well be pulling out so they can turn LEFT. Most cyclists killed in London, and the last one killed in Oxford (Tsz Fok in 2007), were killed by a left-turning HGV.

Another motorcycling habit that has stuck is taking a safe position on the road. I remember being really frustrated when I was helping develop a leaflet called Bus Drivers and Cyclists in Harmony with the bus companies and the county council.

It tells cyclists how they can make life easier for bus drivers and vice versa. There was consensus about a lot of the messages but I had a few battles to fight, especially about where a cyclist should be in the road.

They wanted cyclists about half a metre from the kerb, and I objected. I would never cycle that close. I usually cycle one metre from parked cars and the kerb. In the end the compromise was: “Cycle at least half a metre from the kerb.”.

If you pass a parked car too close, you risk the obvious danger of a car door being opened into your face. A friend of mine recently went head-first through a car door window and suffered a broken collar bone.

As the Institute of Advanced Motorists says: “Sticking to the kerb where drivers are not necessarily looking means they are less likely to see you.”

The CTC advises: “You should not be less than one metre from the kerb and should be further out if it is not safe for a vehicle to pass at that point (e.g. round a blind corner).”

And take a look at the gutters anyway. They’re filled with broken glass and manhole covers and drain grates and cobbles – clearly not a good place to cycle.

Don’t be a victim: cycle where you can see and be seen.