I've been building up to cycling to work since January and have been going all the way on and off for nearly two months. It's 6.5 miles each way with a lot of hills along fairly traffic-heavy but straight and predictable roads (I can cycle in the bus lane around three quarters of the way). However, there is one stretch which is still causing problems nearly every day and I have to get it sorted because my annual travelcard expires on 31st August and I am not paying £1500 for another one. I'm a moderately nervous road user by nature and,while I have found all buses and most cars to be fairly polite, there are one or two every day that are so aggressive I am seriously scared. Today it was so bad I got off, locked my bike up and took the bus the rest I the way.
I think I've attached a diagram. Xs are where I start and where I want to end up.
I'm bowling merrily along a three-lane road in the outside bus lane but I need to turn right. At one set of traffic lights, my bus lane turns into a left turn only lane. I switch to the middle lane. Then, left is bus, middle is straight ahead and right is right turn before another set of lights 150 yards ahead where I need to turn right and the straight ahead and right turn lights come on at different times due to traffic flow in the opposite direction.
I feel like my options are:
1. get back in the bus lane, get off at the lights and walk (but if the lights are green there is nowhere to get off)
2. Get into the right lane ASAP, which is often possible (but then I have to cycle 150 yards with some car driver tailgating me and honking all the way because if I left enough room for them to overtake I'd be in the middle lane - this is extremely distressing for me)
3. Try and skip across at the last minute, which is what I see all the MAMILs do (but it's sometimes impossible so then I am trapped going forwards, or I piss off all the car drivers by weaving around, and I feel like I am going to die at any second)
What am I legally supposed/entitled to do? And what should I actually do?