What you're describing is called a "left hook" (or right hook in places where you travel on the right side of the road). A fair number of cyclists in the UK use action cameras front and rear to document this kind of driving and report it to the police, although it seems that officials seldom take action. Road.cc has a regular "close pass of the day" feature.

Maybe you have to be more self confident? Claim your lane.

A friend once told me a funny tactic: When standing at a red traffic light, open the trunk of the offending driver’s car just before the light turns green. Then ride away while they have to get out of the car in the middle of the intersection to close the trunk.

The movement of flashing lights is difficult to estimate, so from car perspective it could look that you're not moving at all at 15 km/h.

@Michael I would not recommend that. Moreover, how does one open a locked trunk? I assume picking the lock is illegal and would expose oneself to arrest.

Do you really expect every car driver to slow down to 10mph just because you are dawdling along on a bike? Of course they shouldn't drive dangerously close to you, but you don't "own the road" any more than they do. If you don't want to annoy them, try riding at a more normal cycling speed in traffic. And IMHO flashing lights should be made illegal for anything except emergency vehicles - they create more visual confusion than improved visibility.

@Micheal, ...then get back in the car, catch up to you and mow you down. The act of opening the boot is criminal in many countries (locked or not), and I would presume driving charges would be on the table if the Police got involved.

A personal anecdote about "non-standard" lights and high-vis reflectors: I was driving through the village I live in one night when I saw something that looked like a yellow McDonalds sign waving about in the air in front of me. I was still trying to figure out what it was when I nearly collided with the rear of a black horse, with a saddle cloth edged with high-vis reflectors. The high-vis made the actual horse invisible at a distance. (Horse-riders are common in the village, so there was nothing unusual about a horse being ridden after dark)

Can you explain the situation a bit more? How can a driver cut you off if they are travelling over 3 times faster than you? or do you just mean they go into your lane in front of you but too close for comfort? to me at least "cut off" means they go into your lane going slower than you so you need to slow down (rapidly)

@Aequitas. Quite easy actually, they are behind you, driving faster than you they start to overtake. When they are still beside you they turn into you. You never got to see their rear bumper. This is very different to passing you (You see their rear bumper) then pulling into your lane.

NB, most cities in The Netherlands have better cycling infrastructure than Amsterdam; in particular the centre of Amsterdam is not great.

Could you make eye contact with them briefly while they are approaching - before they cut across you?

@alephzero Could you please clarify what a "more normal cycling speed" would be? The OP mentioned 15km/h. This already sounds quite fast for a bike in a city.

@ChrisH On a straight flat cycling lane, 15km/h is not particularly fast, but in the streets of a city with heavy traffic, with many turning points and stopping points, and cars frequently cutting in in front of me, I find I can hardly reach a top speed over 10km/h.

Re "anywhere other than Amsterdam": Nooooo!

"Do you really expect every car driver to slow down to 10mph" yes, because, as you said, they don't own the road. I don't know how fast I ride, but I expect any car or other vehicle to slow down, rather than drive through me, "just because" I happen to be there.

the long term solution is to vote for politicians who will create better bike infrastructure so that a driver can't simply drive in front of a bike (for example, a separated bike lane on a continuous sidewalk)

@njzk2 excellent advice - but this is a 20yr+ solution. Having said that, I do plan to be alive in 20 years :) and I do write to my local councillors to show them my support of human centered and cycle infrastructure

@Servaes - That's not how the physics works out, the car has to slow down to turn. It's as safe or as dangerous as a curved iron wall teleported to pop up right across your lane. The cyclist is sometimes forced to abruptly turn left along with the car, sometimes they manage to stop, sometimes they don't. If they touch while the car still moves, it's nasty.

As an ex-London driver/ cyclist the only way to survive is to ride extremely defensively. Claim your lane, have lights and lots of reflective surfaces and take as many rat runs as you can, especially through parks. I used to ride Balham to Victoria, crossing the river at Chelsea Bridge It's maybe 10 or 11 years so it was beginning of Boris's cycle lanes and highways being introduced by TfL so it's definitely changed now.

People - answers go in answers, please.

@njzk2 Not slowing down != driving through you. In the specific example of making a turn right in front/to the side of a cyclists then fair enough.

The single best tip I ever received for cycling in London is to pretend that you are invisible. Make zero assumptions that traffic will move lawfully or predictably, and if in doubt, assume you are completely invisible until you are certain that you have made eye contact. Yes, it's annoying to yield to the people who aren't paying attention, but its better than the alternatives. TBH, I carry this through to driving my car too. Waiting for eye-contact and slowing down if there's risk that something hidden will pull out from behind obstacles or street "furniture" might be frustrating, but...

@Stef are you sure you mean to talk in km/h, and not miles per hour? 10 km/h is a slow speed for running. It's dangerously slow on a bike, because it's around the speed where stability starts being affected.