Matthew Church:
Today I notice just round the corner on the opposite side the bus stop
has been jettied out into the dual carriageway and the bus now
*completely* blocks the road to cars!

I first heard of this concept some 10 years ago in misc.transport.urban-
transit under the name of "bus bulb". (Presumably the shape of the
"jetty" is considered bulbous. I don't know if a different term is
used in Britain, and I've never actually seen one of them.)

Dave Arquati:
Although in favour of speeding up buses, I wonder whether it might
better serve the interests of both bus users and motorists to introduce
a rule which makes it compulsory to let buses leaving a bus stop pull
out. ...

That works for me. Such a law was adopted recently here in Ontario,
Canada. I'm not sure how many drivers actually know about it, but
that'll improve over time. I include the text of the section for
anyone's interest:

# Requirement to yield to bus from bus bay
#
# 142.1
#
# (1) Every driver of a vehicle in the lane of traffic adjacent
# to a bus bay shall yield the right of way to the driver of
# a bus who has indicated his or her intention, as prescribed,
# to re-enter that lane from the bus bay.
#
# Bus not to signal until ready
#
# (2) The driver of a bus shall not indicate his or her intention
# to re-enter the lane of traffic adjacent to a bus bay
# until the driver is ready to re-enter traffic.
#
# When bus must wait
#
# (3) No driver of a bus shall re-enter the lane of traffic
# adjacent to a bus bay and move into the path of a vehicle
# or street car if the vehicle or street car is so close that
# it is impractical for the driver to yield the right of way.
#
# Regulations
#
# (4) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations
# for the purposes of this section,
# (a) defining bus and bus bay;
# (b) prescribing the manner in which a bus driver shall
# indicate his or her intention to re-enter the lane
# that is adjacent to a bus bay;
# (c) prescribing signs, signal devices and markings for
# bus bays;
# (d) prescribing the standards, specifications and location
# of the signs, signal devices and markings;
# (e) prescribing standards for operating and maintaining
# any signal devices prescribed under clause (c).

(The Lieutenant Governor is the Queen's representative in Ontario,
and "the LG in Council" effectively means the provincial cabinet.)

This was actually enacted in 1994, but with a proviso that it wasn't
in force until so proclaimed, which happened sometime this century.
--
Mark Brader "Elaborative, polysyllabic multipartite agglu-
Toronto tinations can obfuscate and become obstructive
to comprehensibility." -- Chris Torek

My text in this article is in the public domain.