What does it mean to "Share the Road" - long

[Eden]

Nah - I think it would be silly to require cyclists to follow the *exact same* rules as motorists..... we aren't after all cars

In many ways we already don't - for instance here in Washington (check your local laws... not all of these apply everywhere):

we don't need a license, nor do we have to register our vehicle

we don't have to have seat belts, turn signal lights or other safety equipment that only makes sense in cars

depending on the jurisdiction, we can use sidewalks and crosswalks

we are allowed to travel on the shoulder of the road

we are allowed to drink and cycle (really! - if the cops think you are a danger to yourself they can impound your bike and offer you a ride home, but you *cannot* get a DUI on a bike here - which in itself is *very* interesting.... it sets a precedent that recognizes that cycling is not inherently dangerous to others....)

I know there are other things - when you look at the RCW's you'll notice that sometimes they specifically say *motor* vehicles, rather than just vehicles in certain codes

Personally I'd support an Idaho stop law. I tend to track stand stop signs myself and only put a foot down if I need to stop for a fair amount of time. Technically its not illegal..... as long as you come to a full stop at some point.... Then again, I also tend to try to use bigger streets with lights rather than smaller ones with a ton of stops....

It may sound counter-intuitive to some people, but I often feel safer on a bigger 4 lane street with faster flowing traffic than I do on a smaller street. The bigger ones with extra lanes have plenty of room for impatient people to pass, tend to have lights rather than stop signs - and fewer of them, they tend to have *no* on street parking, which hides short me very well from traffic on side streets. On smaller streets I often feel the need to go much slower because many of the intersections are uncontrolled, the road has less room for passing and I am a lot more hidden.

[laura*]

It may sound counter-intuitive to some people, but I often feel safer on a bigger 4 lane street with faster flowing traffic than I do on a smaller street.

I've found the same thing. For a certain commute, I've had the option of winding through residential neighborhoods, or taking the 6 to 10* lane main thoroughfare. Both have on street parking, but the residential area requires constant vigilance for vehicles that may suddenly pull out of a driveway. Or the child chasing a ball into the street.

* A merge lane, three through lanes, two left turn lanes, three through lanes, and a right turn lane.

[OakLeaf]

DH asked me yesterday whether he did the right thing in a traffic situation yesterday, on his motorcycle.

The road he was on was six lanes (three in each direction) plus a continguous bike lane. Midway between intersections, the rightmost motor vehicle lane becomes a turning lane. There's a right turn arrow in the MV lane, an adjacent STRAIGHT arrow in the bike lane, then there's a short break in the bike lane before it resumes adjacent to the middle MV lane, the rightmost one that will go straight through the intersection.




(I love Google Maps...)

So DH is approaching the intersection intending to turn right. (Not the parking lot entrance in the foreground ... he would be turning at the intersection with the traffic light that's just visible ahead.) Two cyclists are ahead of him, intending to go straight. They merge over to their proper position a bit *before* the bike lane resumes in that position - riding near the white line in what will be their bike lane as soon as it resumes. IOW, he reached them opposite the parking lot entrance.

DH asked me whether it was okay to have passed them on the right, in that situation. I told him definitely yes - same as he would pass a slower motor vehicle. It's what he had done, and he was glad that I affirmed it. But the fact that he wasn't sure was sort of an eye-opener. He's been a motorcyclist for decades, and he thinks and talks and reads about traffic safety, and traffic flow, just about every day. If he isn't 100% sure how to ride/drive around bicyclists, then nobody is, and it just points up the crying need for better drivers' ed.


ETA:

Now that I think about it, it's also a great illustration why the rules need to be the same for everyone. We're all in the road together, and if the rules are different for, say, blue vehicles, but I've only ever driven a white vehicle, I might not know the rules for blue vehicles. "Predictable" means OTHER road users know what I'm going to do, and if they have no reason to know the rules that I'm operating by, they have no way to predict my behavior. Equipment regulation is one thing (there are also different equipment regulations for different classes of motor vehicles) and lane restriction is one thing (there are also lane restrictions for different classes of motor vehicles), but as far as right of way and traffic control devices, it totally needs to be the same.

Eden, I find it VERY surprising that OVI isn't a crime on a bici in your state. I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure you're in the minority there. I know it's a crime in Florida and Ohio.


Edit again:

"Same rules for everyone" is also TOTALLY relevant to the four-way-stop situation (or even the situation where automobile drivers with NO traffic control device, or with a green light, will stop out of the blue and attempt to yield to a bicyclist who has a stop sign or red light). I do the California stops when I believe it's safe, I freely admit it, but I'd MUCH rather continue to take my chances with getting a ticket, than take my chances with automobile drivers who would be even MORE confused than they are now, about who has the right-of-way. Honestly, I think the California stop issue is a non-issue. If I didn't see the cop who wound up giving me a ticket for blowing the traffic control device, then I have absolutely no right to claim that I WOULD have seen a vehicle with the right-of-way that might have flattened me.

[Eden]

Eden, I find it VERY surprising that OVI isn't a crime on a bici in your state. I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure you're in the minority there. I know it's a crime in Florida and Ohio.

To tell you the truth it surprised me too, but I'm from the east coast, which tends to be a bit more straight laced.....Public drunkenness (though having an open container is) isn't a crime here either. If you are dead drunk and wandering down the street, if you aren't explicitly breaking any laws or being an active danger to yourself, you cannot be picked up. Again, the police can ask you if you want a ride home or if you need to go to a hospital, but if you refuse they have to leave you alone....

What that says to me is that some law maker sometime recognized that a bicycle is not an inherently dangerous machine to the general public. They can take it away (its just impounded - no fines or fees to get it back) if you are going to hurt yourself, but you aren't a menace to society the way a drunk driver is.

Your pic above is a great example of why I often don't like bicycle lanes.... the whole painted mess on the road is so confusing for everyone.... but if I understand correctly, yes if the cyclists were continuing straight and your husband was going right, he can certainly pass them in the turning lane.

[PamNY]

What that says to me is that some law maker sometime recognized that a bicycle is not an inherently dangerous machine to the general public. They can take it away (its just impounded - no fines or fees to get it back) if you are going to hurt yourself, but you aren't a menace to society the way a drunk driver is..

If this hypothetical lawmaker were an elderly pedestrian in a city, he might change his mind about bicycles having the potential to be a menace to society.

[laura*]

DH asked me whether it was okay to have passed them on the right, in that situation. I told him definitely yes - same as he would pass a slower motor vehicle.

What state did this happen in? Or more importantly, is lane splitting allowed in your state?

If lane splitting is not allowed, then, no, the motorcyclist didn't do the correct thing. We can declare that the bicyclists "took the lane" before their bicycle lane ended. At that point, there was no motor vehicle lane available to pass them on the right. It is only once the bicyclists reached the resumption of the bike lane that a lane was available to pass them on the right.

Now that I think about it, it's also a great illustration why the rules need to be the same for everyone.

The image is also a great illustration of why the rules can't be the same for everyone. It also shows that traffic engineers don't have a clue with regard to bicycle riding. You'd never find braided motor vehicle traffic lanes! But current road designs seem to say this is OK if one of the lanes is a bike lane.

I've encountered this same "magically teleporting bike lane" in two locations. In one, the road forks and the right lane peels off to the right. Stoplight cycling pretty much guarantees that a bicyclist will reach the lane crossing just as a pack of very fast moving cars reach the same point. In the other instance, the right lane becomes a freeway on ramp with rapidly accelerating cars.

In the first instance, my solution is to ignore the bike lane and instead lane split for a tenth of a mile with a traffic lane to both my left and right. I get into position during the traffic gaps caused by the preceding traffic signal.

In the second instance, the bike lane teleports between one side and the other of an intersection. Several times I've been able to get into position by lane splitting and moving to the head of the pack while traffic was stopped at a red light. Then I was only without a dedicated lane for 100 feet across the intersection.

[OakLeaf]

What state did this happen in? Or more importantly, is lane splitting allowed in your state?

If lane splitting is not allowed, then, no, the motorcyclist didn't do the correct thing. We can declare that the bicyclists "took the lane" before their bicycle lane ended. At that point, there was no motor vehicle lane available to pass them on the right. It is only once the bicyclists reached the resumption of the bike lane that a lane was available to pass them on the right.

This was Florida and lane splitting is not allowed. (I think California is the only state where it is.) But I disagree. I don't think this is a case where the rules would or should be different for motorcycles and automobiles/trucks, and that wasn't what DH was asking. The cyclists were in the middle lane (the rightmost lane that was continuing straight). Why shouldn't all other traffic continue to use the left and right lanes normally?

If the cyclists had been turning left rather than going straight, would you reach the same conclusion? Would you say that no motor vehicles could pass them in either the curb lane or the middle lane, if they were in the left lane???

[Jo-n-NY]

Excellent post Edan as well as interesting replys.

[laura*]

The cyclists were in the middle lane (the rightmost lane that was continuing straight). Why shouldn't all other traffic continue to use the left and right lanes normally?

If the cyclists had been turning left rather than going straight, would you reach the same conclusion? Would you say that no motor vehicles could pass them in either the curb lane or the middle lane, if they were in the left lane???

Assuming the cyclists moved left before the discontinuance of the bike lane, they shouldn't be passed on the right because there is no motor vehicle lane to their right.

In the interval while the cyclists were between the discontinuance and resumption of the bike lane, they were in the "rightmost" lane. No one should be passing them on the right at that point. It doesn't matter that the "lane" there is 16-20 feet wide, and that a narrow motorcycle wants to pass.

Once the cyclists reached the resumption of the bike lane, then it would be OK to pass them on the right using the (dedicated) right turn lane.

At all times the cyclists could be passed on the left using either of the two straight through motor vehicle lanes.

[OakLeaf]

Seriously? If the cyclists had been in the left lane preparing to turn left at that break in the median, you'd still say no one could pass them on the right?

Sorry, I just totally disagree.



ETA: regardless of which one of us a traffic court judge would agree with, once again, that we're even debating it here illustrates perfectly why the rules NEED to be the same for everyone. No one's getting flattened or roadraged talking about it on the internet, but the same can't be said for real life.

[oz rider]

we are allowed to drink and cycle (really! - if the cops think you are a danger to yourself they can impound your bike and offer you a ride home, but you *cannot* get a DUI on a bike here - which in itself is *very* interesting.... it sets a precedent that recognizes that cycling is not inherently dangerous to others....)

It's the same here. You can't be booked for being 0.05 BAC on a bike because the offence includes 'motor' vehicle, but I think you can be 'drunk in charge of a vehicle' or something like it. Have never heard of it happening though.

I got our national 'road deaths' data for 2010 yesterday, which sadly included 173 pedestrians, but none of them involved a bike AFAIK (and it's so rare that we do hear about it). I think we are pretty benign.

[PamNY]

II think we are pretty benign.

New York City averages one pedestrian fatality caused by a cyclist per year; the cycling advocacy organization says there are about 500 non-fatal incidents.

Delivery bikers are a big part of the problem, but that's a topic for another thread, probably one called "What does it mean to share the sidewalk?"

[oz rider]

New York City averages one pedestrian fatality caused by a cyclist per year; the cycling advocacy organization says there are about 500 non-fatal incidents.

How many peds killed by cars a year? If they break it down to NYC.

[PamNY]

There were 256 pedestrian deaths in 2009. Eighty percent of drivers in fatal or serious injury incidents were male, BTW.

[Eden]

I know that it can happen (fatal ped-bike accidents), but 1 a year does not an epidemic or a widespread public hazard make..... That doesn't mean I'm making light of it, that I'm condoning reckless riding, or think that it shouldn't be prevented, but we do have to have some perspective. More people are killed each year in the US by slipping on ice, or by lightening (interestingly around 60 per year for each) than are killed by being hit by a bike..... and I get the feeling NYC has bigger numbers than most places.... our rate of fatal bike ped accidents out here in Seattle is around one every 10-15 years... (yes one just happened recently)

Cars (or should I say drivers) on the other hand kill around 40-45,000 people in the US every year and around 1.2 million per year world wide....