If slowing down or moving over is too much trouble, petition your local government to install physically separated cycle tracks instead of bike lanes.
||-(car)-|-(car)-|-(bike)-|||
I say this as a person who uses bike lanes to commute to work, frequently. This is a badly designed law in this bike lane case.
I see cyclists constantly breaking traffic rules, speeding through red lights, mounting onto the pavement, and they never get punished.
If cyclists want to be treated as a road vehicle, perhaps they should be registered like one with a license plate?
Cyclists should behave well, but they are not worthy of traffic enforcement because they are nowhere near as dangerous. Police enforcement should be focused on the most dangerous road users.
Further, many of the poor behaviors you see are a result of cyclists trying to navigate safely for themselves in the absence of good infrastructure. Good cycling behavior is easy when you have separated cycle lanes and clear signals and signage.
It's not that cyclists "want to be treated as road vehicles", but rather that's how the law treats them. I would much rather have my own separated, protected lane and signals than have to mix with motor vehicle traffic.
In short, my choices aren't made based on traffic laws. They're based on trying not to get hit on a minute-to-minute basis. In places without decent bike infrastructure, strict enforcement just presents a choice between tickets and death.
The most frequent complaint I hear about cyclists is the stop sign/red light/yield to pedestrians issue. Changing the law to be more sensible (specifically implementing the Idaho Stop for cyclists) would end the vast majority of those complaints.
Other issues, like taking up an entire lane, are annoying, but only done consistently by assholes...just like only a small portion of drivers are assholes.
It's certainly a pain to have to go slow behind a cyclist when in a car, but it isn't your god given right to go 10 mph over the speed limit at all times...which is the prevailing attitude of basically all drivers everywhere.
First, let's start enforcing traffic laws for cyclists.
You know what happens when you assume, don't you?
Another way to look at it is that if there's no bike lane, the car is probably going to have to go outside the lane to be safe and legal.
OTOH, if you see more than one other car, that's a traffic jam.
Since bicyclists want to own the lane, they'll ride to the outside, which means I have to be three feet from the outside line - which puts me into the other lane at times. Great time to be a police officer.
Occasionally, one cyclist will be in the lane and their partner will be in the car lane, riding beside them. Thus, I am stuck driving 15 mph while they merrily tool along. If I pass them, well, another great time to be a police officer.
The reason for being in the lane is safety. In many situations, impatient people who feel they are impeded will try to squeeze past a cyclist who is not riding safely in the lane. This is among the most frightening and dangerous things that can regularly happen to any road user.
I'm not trying to chastise you. I just hope that you can imagine the situation that other travelers are in so you don't hurt someone in impatience.
I was driving on back-roads to my parents house, and it's not uncommon to see bikes on these roads since they are pretty good biking roads as I understand it. The difference is that these bikes were riding 4 wide on a single lane road, and they had a car in front of them driving between 15-20mph with their hazard lights on, presumably in an attempt to keep cars from passing them.
How is this not "owning" the lane? That was not the first time I've seen this happen either. Bikers also need to understand that this behavior is not reasonable.
I think you need to understand that 1) roads aren't for cars going the speed limit 2) the speed limit is a limit.
This is the type of attitude that does not help driver/biker relations.
Incidentally, I don't own a bicycle and haven't for a long time, nor am I any fan of rude or irresponsible cyclists, whose existence I happily acknowledge.
The vast majority of cyclists that I've encountered are perfectly fine and do not engage in those behaviors I was referring to. I've simply noticed that often the ones that are loudest and most outspoken about "sharing the road" in these debates are often the ones that seem willing to share the road the least, and that immediately changes the tone from a productive one to one of "us versus them".
I think one of us is confused about the exact setup we're talking here. But of course it is wholly irrelevant; some time ago a cab in NYC jumped the curb and crushed a tourists leg, yet I'm not here screaming for cabs to be banned from the roads or asking the cab driver association why they think they can drive on the sidewalk.
How repugnant and arrogant. I'd pass out of spite alone.
1. http://walkbikejersey.blogspot.com/2012/02/pennsy-passes-pro...
As discussed in the thread starting with dragonwriter's response to the above, I should note that this assumes your feeling has a basis in reality. If you want to be sure you don't get a ticket (beyond simply relying on a tendency not to ticket for these things), you should be able to point to why riding where you were riding is objectively safer than riding further to the right.
Not really.
> If you don't feel safe biking along a strech without taking the lane, then the middle of the lane can be "as close to the right as practicable".
You will probably usually get away with that the same way you'll usually get away with ignoring the law requiring yielding to pedestrians at intersections -- its not something the police usually care that much about enforcing. But that's not at all what the law says, and I'd be very surprised if there is any reference in the statute, or any case law, that you can point to that suggests your attempt to define "practicable" as "whatever the bicyclist subjectively feels comfortable doing" is a correct interpretation of the statute.
Yes, really. Per VC 21202, it is explicitly: 1) when passing another bicycle, 2) where the cyclist is planning on making a left hand turn, 3) "[w]hen reasonably necessary to avoid conditions [...] that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge", or 4) approaching anywhere anyone can make a right hand turn. That's "pretty broad", in my book - feel free to disagree, obviously the term is subjective.
"You will probably usually get away with that the same way you'll usually get away with ignoring the law requiring yielding to pedestrians at intersections"
That is a horrendous false equivalence. Violation of that law puts people at risk. I'm advocating an interpretation of a law permitting behaviors that keep people safe.
'But that's not at all what the law says, and I'd be very surprised if there is any reference in the statute, or any case law, that you can point to that suggests your attempt to define "practicable" as "whatever the bicyclist subjectively feels comfortable doing" is a correct interpretation of the statute.'
Not "subjectively feels comfortable doing," but "reasonably considers to be the safer choice". This is the same responsibility everyone has on the road, and it's insane to think that "practicable" is not intended to take safety into account. Riding unsafely is not practicable. I have no idea whether this has been tested in court, but anything else is crazy.
"reasonably considers" is not in the law. "Reasonably necessary" is, but nothing that suggest that is a subjective consideration of the person subject to the requirement rather than an "objective" (as that is used in law, which isn't exactly the normal sense) determination applied to the facts.
Again, I think that you err in assigning subjectivity, and your only support is words that normally in law invoke objective standards.
I'm not going to take a poll or ask a lawyer every five seconds as I try to decide where I need to be.
You are, either way, subject to others disagreeing about what is reasonable; and either way, you should seek to educate yourself about what is empirically safer behavior (for reasons much more important than a ticket).
I think youa re obscuring an important distinction: specifically, you are confusing "how you decide to act based on the law" with "what is required by the law".
> I'm not going to take a poll or ask a lawyer every five seconds as I try to decide where I need to be.
Of course not. That doesn't mean, however, that the requirements of the law are based on your subjective judgement. Obviously, with most laws, you are going to use your subjective judgement to decide how to act, even if the requirements of the law set an objective standard that will be applied should the question of whether you complied with the law ever come into controversy.
But your earlier argument was that the law accomodates your subjective judgement of necessity, which is incorrect.
I see how you can get that from what I said, but it was not meant to be a specific claim in any strong sense.
As I said here, though, there are better reasons than "complying with the law" to make sure your subjective assessment of safety matches reality, and given that your subjective assessment of safety matches reality the law does say what I said above.
A person operating a bicycle or roller skis upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time and place shall operate on the right portion of the way as far as practicable __except when it is unsafe to do so as determined by the bicyclist__ or roller skier
(Thats Maine, but presumably it is similar elsewhere)
At any rate it's pretty dangerous to ride a bike too close to the sidewalk or parked cars. I try to keep a meter (about 3 feet) on the right as well when I cycle.
Step 1. Convince people that bicycle transportation infrastructure is sub-standard in all parts of America and is the underlying cause for accidents.
When cyclists ( total weight < 200 lbs, slow acceleration, fast deceleration) and motorists ( total weight > 2000 lbs, fast acceleration, slow deceleration ) are expected to use the same roadways and are expected to follow the same traffic laws, there will be problems for everyone.
Step 2. Introduce "reasonable" legislation to improve safety for cyclists. "Reasonable" legislation encroaches on motorist's existing feelings of entitlement on the road.
Step 3. Begin discussions on how to compromise:
a. Ban all bikes from everything except mixed used paths - No
b. Revert the "reasonable" legislation, implying cyclist safety is not a concern - No
c. Introduce more bicycle lanes - Maybe
d. Physically separate the bicycle-paths and motorways - Difficult, but not impossible: http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/cycle-supe...
e. Introduce a bicycle tax, so motorists can't lord around the idea cyclists are freeloading roads - Maybe
We're at step 3 now, what real solutions are there?
This seems like a particularly bad idea, especially given how low taxes are on gas in the US. In some states it's even subsidized.
In general most countries (US included) are giving large tax breaks to hybrids and electric cars, so I think we should be going in the opposite direction: no sale tax on bikes, free tubes, lights and high visibility vests to commuters. I think some cities in Europe are already giving away commuter kits.
If car drivers understood how little they are paying into the maintenance of roads especially with respect to how much more damage a car does to the Macadam compared to a bike, I don't think they'd keep seeing the cyclists as freeloaders.
3d seems prohibitively expensive for most places in the US.
3e wouldn't really help anything unless the tax was ridiculously high and could pay for separate bike paths. Given how few people actually commute by bike in most places, this would make a bicycle about as expensive as a Benz, so this doesn't seem very reasonable to me and I'm sure it wouldn't make me happy at all if I rode a bike.
3a and 3b seem like the most practical solutions, honestly. Not because cyclist safety is not a concern, but because we do not have good options available to protect it. They don't make cyclists happy, but I mean, tax laws don't make me happy. If it's unreasonably expensive to give someone special accommodations, sometimes you just can't even if you'd like to.
The cost of a bike lane averages $130,000 per mile.
The cost of an urban road averages $4,000,000 per mile, per lane.
Not to mention better bike infrastructure reduces car traffic: more bikes means fewer cars, the bike infrastructure is not simply additive.
Plus secondary economic benefits: civil density, reduced parking costs, reduced healthcare costs, reduced environmental costs, reduced oil & gas imports, ...
Did you know a parked car takes up 10 times as much space as a parked bicycle?
Did you know there are approximately 10 parking spaces per car in America?
Take away the driving subsidies and everyone would be riding bikes demanding better infrastructure.
I don't think this follows. I don't know anyone who says "Bicycling everywhere is attractive to me and totally fits in with my lifestyle, but there just aren't any bike lanes." I'm sure such people exist, but I don't believe there are a lot of them. For most people, it seems like the problem is that bicycles are just too slow to get where they want to go in the time they want to take to get there. This is largely a result of community planning, not bike infrastructure. Do you have data to the contrary?
> The cost of a bike lane averages $130,000 per mile.
> The cost of an urban road averages $4,000,000 per mile, per lane.
But we aren't just talking about bike lanes, which are insufficient to guarantee that cars never get within three feet of a bike — we're talking about whole separate bike roads separate from the main road. Additionally, urban roads benefit so many more people in most places in the US that they're a bargain even at 30 times the price. I strongly suspect that less than 3% of commuters at any given time are riding bikes.
The number of cyclists was 2.6 times higher in 2012 than 2000. [1]
The program, whose efforts are guided by the Bike 2015 Plan, approved in June 2006, has created over 100 miles (160 km) of new bike lanes, installed 10,000 bicycle racks, and installed 165 miles (266 km) of signed bike routes in 2006. [2].
[1] http://www.bikewalklincolnpark.com/2014/05/walking-and-bikin... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Chicago
The situations that cause problems are drivers who don't see the cyclist or who try to "make a point" by not yielding the right hand edge. It also effects large vehicles who may need to change lanes to pass a bike safely. City buses and big rig trucks are quite good at this. Super-sized SUV's and box trucks not so much.
I and everyone else knows that recreational road bikes and cars are going to continue to have trouble on narrow country roads with no solder and no passing visibility. But that problem did not just come with this law it came with poor road design.
3 feet is the minimum passing distance. It doesn't particularly matter if there's some white paint on the ground, that doesn't magically make it safer. Of course few sane people cycle in the bike lane, because its really more of a 'car driver exit' zone.
That depends tremendously on where. Historically, bike lanes were quite often entirely in the "door zone" - or even outright obscured by parked cars. It's still by no means universal, but cities are increasingly painting better bike lanes.
"cyclists should consider themselves drivers of vehicles in traffic. That means obeying the rules of the road, because when all drivers obey the same rules, they don't have collisions. Forester explains why cyclists should not be afraid to cycle in traffic, and he urges them to resist being shunted off into government-sponsored bike paths as if they were incompetent children."
You've never been outside of a city, have you?
That said, all of this is going to depend on sensible application, and I'm glad to see there won't be a strict-enforcement campaign. It goes on already-massive list of traffic laws that most drivers break every day - it's hardly surprising to see a traffic law that's impractical and dangerous to follow in all cases. Used well, these laws are about giving cops options when people take dangerous actions. Used strictly or vindictively, they make driving an impossible task.
" Will the law apply when passing a bicyclist who is riding in a bike lane? We were originally told that it does not, but upon closer examination there is some grey area in how the law was worded which will probably not be worked out until a case goes to court and a judge rules on it. However, there is no language in the law which specifically says that bike lanes are not covered, so for now we are advising drivers to always pass bicyclists with at least a 3 feet buffer in every situation"