I tend to agree, but I can see both sides. There is also very little (and, as far as I know, zero required) bicyclist education, and many bicyclists make little attempt to drive predictably and safely either out of boldness or ignorance.

Similarly, while stricter rules and enforcement for automobile drivers is warranted, I think the same goes for bicyclists. I don't think it's appropriate to consider bicycles as "first-class vehicles" in all situations, namely in the dangerous situations you list (speed limits >~25mph, multiple automobile lanes, etc.). In those situations, I think it's reasonable to ban bicyclists outright, for the safety of the bicyclists and automobile drivers. Of course, along with that is the need for dedicated bicycle lanes, or better yet, completely separate thoroughfares for bicycles.

Driving a motor vehicle on a road is a privilege. This privilege is represented by a motor vehicle operator's license, which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons.

Riding a bicycle on a non-Interstate public road is a right. If this clashes with driving habits, driving habits need to yield.

That's a bold claim. Citation?

Driving a motor vehicle does endanger peoples' lives, so we (society) decided you don't have the "right" to do it, but you can be granted the privilege to do so pretty easily provided you have the $$ for administrative fees & can pass a test demonstrating basic competency.

Your question is totally reasonable, but I think it's fair to say one has a "right" to bike on public roads (barring interstates) but not a "right" to drive on public roads as this requires a license & is subject to many strict regulations.

I am interested in why sequoia asserts that it's correct (or at least permissible) to prohibit bicycles from interstates but a violation of rights to prohibit them from other roads. The fact that bicycles are not prohibited from all interstates seems somewhat orthogonal...

This is regrettably untrue. There are far fewer deaths from bicyclists, of course, but if you google you'll see that there's about one a year. Although I'm pro-cycling I have to say I particularly dislike that segment of cycling community which seems to have the attitude that they not only have right of way at all times against cars, but also against pedestrians; I have had far more near-misses from careless or rule-breaking cyclists than with cars.

Corollary: When states declare that bicycles on public roads are subject to the same rules and responsibilities as cars (and most/all states do), sanctions on bicycling are not available as penalties.

"bicycles shall be deemed vehicles and every rider of a bicycle upon a highway shall be subject to the provisions of this Chapter applicable to the driver of a vehicle"

source: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/...

[1] http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/043/88/I...

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unite...

In an ideal world bicycles are given equal respect and stature on the roads. In practice, however, riders have a lot more to lose in a collision with a car.

Since you mentioned "an ideal world," I'm going to completely disagree. I think that bicycles and automobiles sharing roads is, at best, a manageable but extremely dangerous situation. Like it or not, bicycles and automobiles behave very differently, and require their surrounding vehicles to behave very differently. In an ideal world, there would be separate thoroughfares for automobiles and bicycles, and neither would be allowed on the other (like we already mostly have for pedestrians)

If you're talking about sidewalks, it's barely separate, as in a city there are conflicting paths between the road and the sidewalk every dozen feet (every driveway or intersection).

I am not disagreeing, genuinely curious about the argument

ADDED: I did a little research and found other examples of privilege vs. right[1].

[1] http://constitution.org/cmt/right-privilege.htm

If that was a sound argument, then one could say that the right to own a firearm is really just a privilege because most states require a license to own a firearm which may be revoked by the state for a variety of reasons. Or similarly that the right to vote is just a privilege because you must register and there are a variety of reasons for the state to revoke it.

Just because a right is regulated does not make it a privilege.

The right to freedom of movement is not really a right if it does not include by all available means.

For example, to say you have the right to walk from the east coast to the west coast but not the right to drive a car (or ride a train/bus/plane - all arguments that have been made post 9/11) means that you de facto do not have the right to travel from the east coast to the west coast because it is impractical for the vast majority of the population to walk it.

I'm sure there are motor vehicle codes that have adopted the language of privilege rather than right if for no other reason than it makes it easier for them to claim that moral authority later on, but that doesn't make it true in the sense of natural law. Government does not grant people privileges because everything the government does comes from the people to begin with.

Try watching the junctions around Holbourn tube station and you will see several in a few minuets.

This isn't a "on the one hand, on the other" issue. Even the most foolish and aggressive cyclist is almost never endangering the safety of drivers around him, even indirectly. Yet all it takes is a nudge, honk, door opening, unsignaled turn, etc. to kill a cyclist.

Bicycle etiquette is for all practical purposes not a public safety issue, and IMHO responses of the "but bicyclists can be rude" variety to incidents like these only help perpetuate a driving culture aggressive to cyclists.

> In those situations, I think it's reasonable to ban bicyclists outright

Why not lower the speed limit, or add a bike lane? Just because you perceive the public roads as "car roads" and driving as "normal" doesn't make it so, and I don't think your convenience should trump someone's basic ability to get around.

Why not? The roads were built for cars. Driving on them isn't just "convenient," it's exactly what was intended to happen. Don't get me wrong, there should absolutely be more bike lanes and other considerations so that cyclists can travel safely. But, the infrastructure in its current state is definitely built around automobiles, and mixing bikes in is dangerous.

I just spent 4 days commuting around Chicago on bike, so again, I'm all for it. But, as a cyclist, I think you have to approach it like you're in someone else's territory and subject to their whims. I don't believe an indignant "this is my road too" attitude is going to do you any favors.

This is untrue.

"The coming of the railways in the 1830s killed off the stage-coach trade; almost all rural roads reverted to low-level local use. Cyclists were the first group in a generation to use roads and were the first to push for high-quality sealed surfaces and were the first to lobby for national funding and leadership for roads. Without cyclists, motorists wouldn't have hit the ground running when it came to places to drive this new form of transport."

http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/

Here, even 70 years ago, several roads were just a dusty path through fields and many of them didn't exist yet. When they were actually built as a road, it was done for cars, buses, trucks and it was done from steep consumption taxes on gas and later from country-wide toll imposed on cars.

Of course, YMMV in your country. But I really think that you didn't have asphalt-paved 10 m wide roads 180 years ago.

It is amazing how the marketing of car culture change people's perception of this. No, roads were not developed for cars. Roads and streets where predominantly pedestrian avenues prior to motorized vehicles. Pedestrians, cyclists (when the bike was invented), horses, and trollies (again, when invented) all occupied streets and the space was considered public.

I highly doubt that. I have seen dozens of bicyclists cause absolute chaos in traffic. Granted, I've never seen any collisions, but I can't imagine that the chaos I've seen is "safe" compared to the normal flow of traffic.

> Yet all it takes is a nudge, honk, door opening, unsignaled turn, etc. to kill a cyclist.

True, but if your implication is that bicyclists should be able to freely use roads because of how vulnerable they are, then pedestrians should also be able to freely use roads.

Edit: Bike lanes increase safety but I just added it to point out that it's a relatively complicated situation. I think lower speeds were the biggest factor towards increasing safety. I can't find the study either so the above really isn't worth all that much, my memory being what it is.

Like I said in the other comment: a bike is never a threat to a car. A car is always a threat to a bike. While your points are valid, saying that that is looking at "both sides" is an inappropriate way of describing the situation.

Not to mention the fact that a cyclist at full speed can absolutely kill a person, especially a small person.

Any motorist driving irresponsibly should be ticketed and any cyclists doing the same should also be ticketed.

Bikes can certainly damage cars. I had a friend who went through a passenger window (breaking through the glass) of a car that pulled out in front of him. If that was the driver's side window, there is a nonzero chance that the driver might have been knocked out or somehow wrecked his car.

Also, cars (and their drivers) can definitely get hurt trying to avoid collisions with bikers by swerving out of the way and colliding with other vehicles/buildings/going off the road into a ditch.

The several grandfather post to this would have said essentially the same thing and would be much less controversial if it just read "a bike is less of a threat to a car than a car is to a bike", rather than using the absolutes of "always" and "never" (which rarely can be used to describe real life situations).

Also, despite historical claims, I'm fairly confident that most roads (by any reasonable definition of most) in the US today were built with the majority of design thought about drivers.

Even if someone's driving defensively, sudden changes in the environment lead to a more dangerous situation. If they're driving defensively, hopefully they can deal with it, but that is no reason to create dangerous situations in the first place.

However, in this constructed situation, it seems to me that the driver is being more unsafe by driving that fast.

However, in places with vehicles going differing speeds, I would put the onus of safety on the faster vehicles.

I have been paying attention in a city for a while. I have seen the situation you describe, but it's rare in my experience, even with SF supposedly full of reckless fixie-riders. Dangerous driving is far more common in my experience.

And dangerous driving is probably more common (certainly by number of instances), and it should be condemned as well.

And then look at the resulting injuries.

Instead people are getting all anal about the use of "never" and "always", and use far-fetched examples where a car can be threatened by a bike when atttempting to avoid running over it and crashing into something else.

Way to direct the discussion away from the point I'm trying to make. Look at this Dutch national report on bike safety:

http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Ss_RA/RA47.pdf

The Netherlands has one of the highest percentage of people riding bikes with an estimated 14 million bicycles for 16.5 million inhabitants. It has one of the most developed infrastructures in favour of bike safety, about the safest traffic in Europe in general, and as a culture it is about as bike-oriented as it gets. Despite all of this, travelling with your bike is still 4.7 times more dangerous than travelling with a car.

I am in no way trying to absolve cyclists or pedestrians of their responsibility in traffic safety, but denying that they aren't inherently more vulnerable and that infrastructure design should emphasize their safety is absurd.

EDIT: And even then it's skewed in favour of the car, because for cars the fatality rate is more likely due to crashes with other cars.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/no-jail-for-cyclist-c...

Your idea of banning cycle traffic on >25mph roads is misguided. Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill.

I doubt that, maybe in burst/sprint but not sustained...Hell, the average top speeds in the Tour de France during the sprints is barely 25mph and those are top athletes.

>but the last thing we need if we want to encourage bicycling is nanny-state policing of proper signaling and such.

So we should enforce traffic laws on cars but not on bicycles? That's fairly myopic...

I don't think that's true. I haven't personally witnessed any accidents, and I admittedly don't have any data to cite, but I have witnessed many bicyclists cause complete chaos in busy traffic.

  So we should enforce traffic laws on cars but not on
  bicycles? That's fairly myopic...

According to this site [1], biking accounts for 1% of trips, but 2% of traffic fatalities.

[1] - http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/facts/crash-facts.cfm

  UK figures show that it takes at least 8000 years of
  average cycling to produce one clinically severe head
  injury and 22,000 years for one death.

You might argue that cycling is safe. You can't argue that it is safer. It simply isn't.

Tell that to Michael Hastings, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear the news.

Fewer than 2000 people die in plane crashes every year, despite the millions who fly. So I suppose we shouldn't make them follow any rules or safety procedures either, I mean it isn't as if those rules have prevented any deaths. Right?

   Why should I have to respect you more than a car

You should respect me because I am exposed, riding a machine with few to no safety devices. It's the same reason I drive particularly carefully around motorcyclists. I do respect them more, so to speak, because they are at far greater risk on the road than car drivers. I want to see that they reach their destination safely, and I know the odds are stacked against them by distracted or arrogant drivers.

Most cyclists in the TdF, maybe. 25 mph is quite fast on a bicycle.

In fact, just this morning a lady got hit and put in the ICU at the corner of King St and 3rd in San Francisco, right near the ballpark. Yolanda, the lady who manages the front desk, was reviewing the tapes with the police after the accident. That's the second serious accident involving a pedestrian or bicyclist at that intersection since the beginning of the year. TBH, the speed limit in SoMa needs to be dropped to 25 mph. People drive far too fast in this neighborhood for it to be safe for either bicyclists or pedestrians.

This is completely untrue, at least in NYC.

"Historically, nearly half of motorists who kill a New York City pedestrian or cyclist do not receive so much as a citation for careless driving."

http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/08/03/nypd-7371-pedestrians-...

As for "police routinely pull video ... to establish fault" -- this is just one example, but recently in DC there was a bike-and-car crash in which a surveillance video proved the cyclist was not at fault, but the police refused to even look at it: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19284/it-must-have-...

> Most cyclists have no trouble traveling at a speed greater than 25mph, even uphill.

The average speed of the tour de france winners now is only about 25mph and that is very heavily drug assisted;)

http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

Given this I can't really take your statement as a serious one:)

Aren't tickets usually a source of revenue?

Especially in the city, it's prohibited to ride on the sidewalk; you must use the street even where there are no specially marked bike lanes. So, what you propose seems particularly outrageous to me; the only remaining options to get around the city would be having a car or using public transportation (or going on foot.)

Well, think about it this way. Why are pedestrians banned from walking on roads, even when there are no nearby sidewalks? The answer, I believe, is that it's extremely dangerous, both to the pedestrian and to automobile drivers, and that it would cause massive inefficiency in the flow of traffic. The reality is that bicycles, like pedestrians, necessarily behave very different than automobiles, and most of our roads and traffic laws are designed around automobiles. Similarly, bicycles are not allowed on certain types of roads (many bridges, freeways, etc.) Obviously, its a continuum, and bicycles can fit in with automobiles better than pedestrians. The question is simply where to draw the line.

There's no massive inefficiency, the cars pass the pedestrians, the cyclists, the skateboarders and all the other road users, when safe to do so, just like the law says they should.

even the guys in their $10k road bikes and full outfits, who ostensibly take bicyclig VERY seriously, just blow through stop signs like they weren't even there. sometimes even stop LIGHTS if it's a t-stop.

especially when they're riding in their large groups. and sometimes they even ride on the wrong side of the road (LOL)

i live in santa monica, maybe it's especially bad here.

http://www.cyclelicio.us/2013/stop-sign-compliance-temecula-...

where I live, anyone who pays attention realizes that most bicyclists are either casual, ignorant weekend riders or very serious road bikers who just simply don't give two shits about the law. commuters who follow the law are VERY rare.

My common-sense understanding of the difference is that a cyclist can more readily hear what is happening near an intersection, has fewer visual obstacles to see what is near an intersection, and is often already moving slower than a car. That makes me feel that a cyclist rolling through a stop sign is far less dangerous than a car doing the same.

My experience has been in SF/Oakland/Berkeley.

Anyway, the reason I added that link in the earlier comment was to illustrate my frustration with the "all cyclists break laws all the time, they need to be safer like cars" fable -- the article links to a study that found that by 1996, only 1% of cars stopped at the stop sign being observed. Of course there are cyclists who break laws, but there are far more drivers who break laws, and they are the more dangerous offenders.

Interesting... I've noticed your username above several rather anti-social comments in several different threads over the last day or so. I wonder why.

/Meta

To be honest, I don't think alxndr was being snarky. I see plenty of drivers plow through stop signs at 5-10 mph. I also see plenty of people on bikes plow through stop signs at 5-10 mph. Both are in the wrong, but the fact that the person on the bike was going the same speed before the stop-sign doesn't seem hugely relevant to me. What does seem relevant is that plowing through at 5-10 mph in a car is far more likely to injure or kill a pedestrian or cyclists than doing so in a car, for simple reasons of mass and vehicle width.

Frankly, your little rant sounds like the self-serving justification I usually hear from several of my friends and relatives for raging at cyclists. Those friends and relatives are among the least courteous and defensive (that is to say, the most dangerous towards other drivers and cyclists around them) drivers I've ridden with. I hope for your sake and mine that you are not like that.

Every cyclist should go out and measure a lane or two here and there to get a feeling for approximately how wide a 14 ft lane is, so you know when you can legally take up the whole lane.

The only other thing to keep in mind with this, is that if you do take up the whole lane, it is your responsibility to pull over to the right periodically if the number of cars backed up behind you exceeds 5 (IIRC)

When it's just you and the other car on the road, there's no way of proving what happened, you just have to hope there were witnesses, or god forbid you do get run off the road, that the accident scene has enough evidence to show criminal intent.

Yes, there's probably giant privacy implications there, but fuck it. They're trying to kill people out there.

Showing this kind of behavior could prompt their insurance to drop them or possibly increase their premium.

Most cars are blocked by other cars on the road and you don't see cars honking at other cars nearly as often as it happens to bicyclists (except maybe in NYC... hehe)

Also, most of the time the substandard width lane issue is only a factor within cities. Cars shouldn't really be traveling that quickly within a city, except maybe on elevated highways.

>[Slam] their brakes without noticing my bike behind them

You're a vehicle when you ride on the streets, it's your responsibility to maintain a safe distance from the person in front of you and to react to their brake lights. The person in front of you is well within their rights to slam on their brakes if and when they need/want

As a pedestrian, I've almost been struck a few times by cyclists running red lights while crossing Market Street. Most of those cyclists yell at me for having the audacity to be in their way. In San Francisco, it seems that I'm the exception for actually stopping at red lights on a bicycle.

Also, what about if you merge into my lane right in front of me and then slam on your brakes? In that case, you made it impossible for me to maintain a safe distance.

I never said no good reason...

>hat about if you merge into my lane right in front of me and then slam on your brakes? In that case, you made it impossible for me to maintain a safe distance.

This has been arbitrated in court (at least in my neck of the woods), if you merge and in doing so cause an accident you're a fault. The entire law system is setup to relate to the actions that a "reasonable" person would do. It isn't reasonable to expect the person who you've just merged in front of to immediately be at a safe distance (in fact you, the merger, are responsible for merging in a way that's safe.)

Just because you don't see it happen, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Same guy was almost destroyed by a truck as we were riding through an intersection with the green light because the truck decided to speed up for the yellow light and run the red light.

As far as I know, this is standard in driving laws across the U.S. Is there somewhere this doesn't apply?

If you get hit and get propelled into the car in front of you, it's your fault you hit the car in front of you (although this may vary by state).

If the manual transmission car in front of you shifts into neutral on a hill and slides back into you, it's your fault.

The person behind is usually in control of the space between cars and they are held to be responsible for it. You can possibly make it not their fault if you shift directly into someone's lane at speed right in front of them and then hit the brakes.

Also, IIRC when a car hits pedestrian or bike, the car is always the "guilty" party because pedestrians or bikes are never a safety threat to cars (you can still be acquitted if it is clear that there's no way you could have prevented the crash). Does the US have something like that to promote cautious driving habits?

It should terrify you. It's terrifying. I know dozens of people who regularly commute by bike in the ostensibly bike-friendly city of Seattle. Nearly all of them have been hit by a car at some point.

Granted it's probably not as bad as many other American cities, but for all Seattle's often rather liberal laid-back nature, Seattleites also seem to lovvvve their cars, and the state of public infrastructure to reflect that.

I used to bike a lot in Seattle about 25 years ago, and well ... I always felt very alone, and often very nervous. I felt part of a fringe. My impression was that although there generally wasn't the sort of overt "kill bicyclists!" aggression you might find elsewhere, Seattle was still very much a car-focused city, and that few concessions were made to bicyclists, other than the random token gesture (bike racks on buses, etc). There seemed to be essentially zero real bike infrastructure.

Maybe things have changed in the last few decades, I dunno. I haven't noticed much obvious change when I've visited since, although the bike cops are great (they're the friendliest police I've ever encountered!).

Quite the opposite, in fact. In NYC, drivers are seldom cited at all even when a cyclist or pedestrian has been killed. Here's the link I have on hand, but there are more http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/08/03/nypd-7371-pedestrians-...

Your link does not say that drivers are ‘seldom cited’; it says that drivers are cited slightly over half the time. A priori, an even split in responsibility across all cases seems perfectly reasonable.

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

Some recent headlines about how NYPD handles car-and-bike collisions:

"Another Cyclist Killed at East Harlem Intersection, NYPD Again Blames Victim"

"Motorist Havoc: Two Dead, Five Hurt, Kids in Critical Condition, No Charges"

"Cleared in Traffic Court, Hit-and-Run Killer Still Employed at NYC DOT"

"Leroy Comrie Bill Would Force NYPD to Report to Council on Hit-and-Runs"

"Hynes: No Charges for Curb-Jumper Who Blew Red and Killed Pedestrian"

"NYPD: Pedestrian Killed Himself by Running Into Stopped Police Cruiser"

"Cyclist’s Brother Says NYPD Closed Investigation Into Unsolved Death"

"Immune From Prosecution, Curb-Jumping NYC Motorists Claim More Victims"

"Irvin Gitlitz, 83, Was First of Two Pedestrian Fatalities Wednesday" (which notes, "The truck involved in the crash that killed Irvin Gitlitz did not have required crossover mirrors. The driver was not summonsed," and for the second fatality, "No summonses were issued")

...and those headlines are just going back to April of this year. http://www.streetsblog.org/category/issues-campaigns/nypd-cr...

I don't disagree with what I think is the spirit of your comment, which is that there's probably a policy response to this tragedy. To me, it highlights the all-to-lax nature of our moving violation enforcement laws; every American who gets behind the wheel (myself very much included) subjects their neighbors to tremendous risks, and the penalties and risk of detection don't create meaningful incentives.

Neither source linked from the article says that the driver went off-road, both say that Seth Vidal was traveling "on Hillandale Road," that he was "a bicyclist traveling north on Hillandale Road." It makes no sense for a bicycle advocate and experienced rider to be riding off-road, so I will have to see a source to believe that.

Someone told me I could get cited for riding my bike on a sidewalk. Fuck that shit. I'd rather pay $50 than get hit by a car.

As a driver managing turns, you're traveling at a very different speed than the people I'm expecting on the sidewalk which makes turning safely much more difficult.

I clearly said I slow down or dismount when I'm near pedestrians. If you still feel terrified or bullied, I think that's a personal problem.

>>As a driver managing turns, you're traveling at a very different speed than the people I'm expecting on the sidewalk which makes turning safely much more difficult.

Bikers who do this deserve absolutely no sympathy. The safe thing to do when biking on sidewalks is to dismount as you arrive at an intersection, even if the pedestrian light is green. Then you cross the intersection as a pedestrian, i.e. by walking.

I think this is also the legally required thing to do in most jurisdictions.

You think you can't seriously hurt somebody on a bike? It depends on the someone you hit. Slow down when you see a pedestrian, as there might be others that you don't see. Don't ring your little bell at them as you whip past at 20mph, just slow down and show some common courtesy like a real human person.

Your lack of desire to take seriously your responsibilities to those you share the sidewalk with is a problem for me. You want to be on the sidewalk so you'll be safe, while at the same time, refusing to acknowledge any risk you're imposing on others. That doesn't fly with me. Slow it down, sporty.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/03/07/san-francisco-bicyc...

http://dcist.com/2012/06/woman_dies_after_being_hit_by_cycli...

Clearly this is an issue of religion. If so, then just declare your side, sharpen your pitchfork and be done with it. But arguing as this thread does, that riding on the sidewalk for safety is "equally unsafe" needs to be done with evidence. It's certainly not true that the collisions are independently more dangerous. Maybe you could argue that there would be more of them or something.

>>Fortunately, most sidewalks where I live are sparsely populated, and I make sure to slow down to walking speed or dismount completely when going through areas with lots of pedestrians.

* If you hear a car coming up on you, always turn your head and look back at the car so that they know you see them and because faces command attention. This quick look also gives you an idea of how much the driver notices you, that is, if you have to bail in a hurry.

* If there are cars around in general, ride with a rigid posture that makes you appear a more formidable object.

* Keep close enough to the center of the road that motorists think twice before passing you, move over briefly if you want them to be able to pass (they'll appreciate it).

* Always signal your intentions if there is any traffic, bicycle or otherwise.

Critical mass has to start somewhere! :^)

The thing about riding your bike on the sidewalk is that you, as the cyclist, can avoid virtually all danger by being cautious. Whereas on the road, you're pretty much at the mercy of car drivers and are at great risk regardless of how careful you are.

"The most interesting result of the analysis was the finding that sidewalk cyclists have higher event rates on roads than nonsidewalk cyclists."

Depending on where you ride, that may or may not actually be the case. In my city, it's absolutely legal to ride on the sidewalk as long as you yield to pedestrians.

Where I live, Mexico City, there are lots of idiots who ride in the wrong direction in those lanes. I confront some of them and am told that I am crazy, because, you know, no pasa nada.

Be happy that you have bike lanes at all; for all intents and purposes there aren't any where I live.

Stop doing that. [DELETED EPITHET].

That block of Hillandale Road changes so radically in one block for historical reasons: the narrow section you see above is just as it emerges from a golf course, and the city has been unable to expand that section of road, so I've been told, because the golf course owns the shoulders and has resisted efforts.

All the cyclists in town know it as a dangerous section, but are forced to use it as it's one of few routes over I85, the freeway visible in your mapquest link.

Hint: Mount a retractable side flag to your bicycle and hang a sharp, metal object at the end where the reflector is. Leave it hanging on a long enough string (10-15cm) so as to allow it to move around easily. That should keep car drivers away, at least those who appreciate the paintwork on their cars.

What needs to be fixed is driver education, especially the driver tests.