3ft passing requirement revisited

On Aug 23, 2:43*pm, Barry Harmon wrote:
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote :

1. *A large difference in relative speed makes for accidents,and
there is a lot of difference in speed between a car moseying along
and a bike moseying along. *If you can't keep up with the traffic
flow, stay out of the road.

That's one of the most ridiculous things I've read on rbm, and I've
read some pretty silly stuff. Roads should be designed for all
vehicular traffic, not just cars. If not keeping up with traffic is
causing problems, that's an issue with road design.

At least some traffic engineers and police departments agree with me
regarding the hazards of large differences in relative speed. *Note that
I said stay out of the road, not the roadway. *If the speed limit is 45
and you are in the traffic lane doing 15 or 20, you are holding up
traffic and are endangering yourself. *If you don't agree with that,
then you are probably a candidate for a Darwin Award.

I rode 40 miles today, a round trip to a neighboring city, including
stops at a couple places in the center of that city. There were
plenty of times I was in the traffic lane, doing 15 to 25 mph. Speed
limits varied from 25 in towns to 55 on highways.

I estimate I delayed motorists by a grand total of one minute. (For
the record, I was delayed by motorists roughly the same amount.)

Why so little? Because almost every time a motorist passed me, there
was zero delay. Either the lane was wide enough to safely share, or
there was no oncoming traffic, so the motorist moved to the opposing
lane to pass me.

The few times I took the lane to prevent unsafe passing, I had no
problem. Nobody honked or complained. The delay for each motorist
was negligible, and they could see the reason for it.

IOW, you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

And I don't know what you would have me do, anyway. To leave my
village, I _must_ ride on several streets (including one state
highway) that have substandard lane widths - about 9 feet. Does you
intend for me to walk my bike out of town? Or stand meekly at the
side of the road until no cars are coming?

That's hardly consistent with the fact that cyclists have a legal
right to the road, is it?

- Frank Krygowski

Barry Harmon wrote:

1. A large difference in relative speed makes for accidents,and
there is a lot of difference in speed between a car moseying along
and a bike moseying along. If you can't keep up with the traffic
flow, stay out of the road.

That's one of the most ridiculous things I've read on rbm, and I've
read some pretty silly stuff. Roads should be designed for all
vehicular traffic, not just cars. If not keeping up with traffic
is causing problems, that's an issue with road design.

At least some traffic engineers and police departments agree with me
regarding the hazards of large differences in relative speed. Note
that I said stay out of the road, not the roadway. If the speed
limit is 45 and you are in the traffic lane doing 15 or 20, you are
holding up traffic and are endangering yourself. If you don't agree
with that, then you are probably a candidate for a Darwin Award.

Ridiculous? I find your attitude regarding road design amusing and
highly unrealistic.

2. Roads are designed for cars. There, I said it. Get over it.

Nice thinking there. Goes back to your point #1. We cyclists (are
you a cyclist?) should know our place. Some of us are just too
uppity and trouble-causing. Especially those who know the vehicle
code.

Yes, I'm a cyclist, and have been since 1947.

It's not the uppity and trouble-causing that bothers me, it's the
pseudo machismo that gets me. You can engage in all the dangerous
acts you want, but at least accept the consequences of your actions
without blaming others for them. (See a point below regarding
influencing others.)

3. Riding bikes on a busy, higher-speed road is dangerous.

Nonsense. It's not the speed that's dangerous, it's opportunities
for conflict. You are far more likely to be killed by either you or
a car running an intersection at moderate speed than being run down
from behind on an expressway.

Huh? Just because running a stop sign happens more often than
getting blown off a high-speed road doesn't make it more dangerous.
These are not mutually exclusive outcomes. For some reason, many
states have seen fit to preclude bicycles and some other classes of
things from their high-speed roads. I wonder why? Maybe you should
enlighten them.

4. Cars can survive an accident with a bike far better than
vice-versa.

No question.

5. US roads are not, and never will be, as bike friendly as
European roads. There is a world of difference between Denmark
and the US, like it or not, and we can't change that, at least not
over the next few years.

Change has to start somewhere. I believe it has started already.
We're making progress in DC at the annual Bike Summit. Road
manuals are being re-written to include the needs of cyclists by
default. We're already seeing the results, as new roadways are
build and old ones redesigned for better traffic flow. The world
will become a better place for bikes only if cyclists assert their
rights to use the roads and tell people in Washington that we're
legit taxpayers.

I agree that change should start somewhere, but the thought that
cyclists should "take the lane to show the cagers who's in charge"
won't get it done.

Maybe I'm spoiled by riding in my part of Northern New Jersey. Some
of the roads where I live have a lot of 6-8 foot wide bike lanes,
which makes my daily 25-40 mile exercise ride very safe and serene
-- as serene as anything can be in New Jersey.

Unfortunately for your argument, the change won't come from
Washington, It'll come at the state and lower level, since that's
where state and local codes are written and enforced. You should
spend your time in Sacramento, not Washington.

6. John Forrester is delusional. Following his path will be
dangerous to some people's health.

Some of what John says is true, but it's far too idyllic to be
practical for most.

My concern regarding this whole discussion is that some
impressionable sort will read about taking the lane, showing the
cagers, etc., and actually do it and get hurt doing it. The whole
macho mantra displayed here is akin to the person who gets his first
400hp car and becomes Andretti for a day on the public roads.
Machismo may have its place, but it's inappropriate while riding a
bike in traffic. But maybe I'm a throw-back to the days when a
thing called Defensive Driving was popular.

I find your response a ray of light in a dark elitist view of
bicycling and auto traffic. Locally the "cars are a hazard" people
lost out when Foothill expressway was repainted with standard lane
widths and an edge stripe that left a good 8 ft shoulder marked for
bicycles. They said it couldn't be done, but it has worked admirably
the last more than 10 years.

The "it can't be done folks still exist and try to make an issue of it
anywhere they can. I wrote to the county roads department and county
supervisors about another road, Kings Mountain Road, on which there
was a double center line with double bots-dots for the entire 4.2
miles from Woodside to Skyline Blvd. Because the anti bicycle folks
used these knobs and center lines as an excuse to buzzing bicyclists
closely, I asked that the bots-dots be removed so these poor drivers
could without rude noises from the road, pass bicyclists at a
reasonable distance.

There are no more bots-dots on Kings Mountain road and practically no
cars buzz bicyclists who ride where they ought to. In contrast, HWY
84 from La Honda to HWY 1 has wakeup burrs in the dual center stripe,
yet buzzing bicyclists is rare, the Kings Mountain folk not treading
there often and cars regularly brrrrrmp over the center stripe when
passing bicyclists. That show me how much ill will there is on Kings
Mountain road.

Jobst Brandt

On Aug 23, 11:43*am, Barry Harmon wrote:
*Note that
I said stay out of the road, not the roadway.

You seem to be using these terms in a way that is not consistent with
the definitions in the vehicle codes.
I'm reading this in ba.bicycles and therefore going by the California
code, but AIRC the one in NJ was similar.
Section 530 of the CVC specifies that "roadway" refers only to the
portion of highway or road that is ordinarily used by motor vehicle
traffic (therefore excluding the shoulder). Staying out of the 'road'
is therefore more restrictive and includes both staying off the
'roadway' and also any adjacent shoulder or other part of the public
route.

But from a practical standpoint, many roads do not have sufficient
shoulder area to allow a bicyclist to travel on them without being in
the traffic lane (i.e. 'roadway') at least some of the time.
Restricting cyclists from even the roadway portion of all roads where
traffic goes substantially faster than bike speeds would have the
effect of preventing bicycle access to many possible destinations and
eliminate the bicycle as a viable means of transportation in many
areas.

Peter Rathman wrote:

Â*Note that I said stay out of the road, not the roadway.

You seem to be using these terms in a way that is not consistent
with the definitions in the vehicle codes. I'm reading this in
ba.bicycles and therefore going by the California code, but AIRC the
one in NJ was similar. Section 530 of the CVC specifies that
"roadway" refers only to the portion of highway or road that is
ordinarily used by motor vehicle traffic (therefore excluding the
shoulder). Staying out of the 'road' is therefore more restrictive
and includes both staying off the 'roadway' and also any adjacent
shoulder or other part of the public route.

But from a practical standpoint, many roads do not have sufficient
shoulder area to allow a bicyclist to travel on them without being
in the traffic lane (i.e. 'roadway') at least some of the time.
Restricting cyclists from even the roadway portion of all roads
where traffic goes substantially faster than bike speeds would have
the effect of preventing bicycle access to many possible
destinations and eliminate the bicycle as a viable means of
transportation in many areas.

If you can't see that even the motor vehicle code is filled with
gratuitous verbiage, you are not a critical reader. I am appalled at
warning signs that end with "AHEAD" and begin with "BE PREPARED TO
STOP" in contrast to an icon of a flagman or traffic signal. Roadway
is much like road signs in my area where, for instance, "Pescadero
Rd." has become "PESCADERO CREEK ROAD", more words are more important.

Jobst Brandt

"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote in message
news
I've wondered whether cyclists really need a law that requires cars to
pass us no closer than 3 feet. I generally don't have too many issues out
on the road, and it would seem that common sense and courtesy go a long
way towards making the world a reasonable place to drive and bike.

Until today.

I didn't even really know what happened until I played it back in mind
mind immediately afterward. Karl, Kevin and I were on the return leg of
our usual Tuesday/Thursday morning ride, heading north on 84 in Woodside,
approaching Tripp Road. We were not only single file, but single file on
the very edge of the road... I mean riding in tight formation, with maybe
just a couple inches (really) of pavement to the right of our wheels. If
there was a "good citizen" award for cyclists sharing the road, we would
have gotten it.

That might be the problem. See below.

No reason for us to impede cars if we don't have to (the shoulder's in
pretty good shape there, and being the first day of school for many, there
was more traffic than usual).

And then the black SUV went past us.

It didn't blast its horn. It didn't swerve. It simply didn't deviate from
its course. And it passed each of us by maybe, what, 6 inches? Could have
even been a bit less. It was RIGHT THERE.

I related a similar experience to a veteran motorcylcist. His reaction was
more or less, 'Well, what did you expect?!? If you cede the lane then you
will eventually get pushed off the road.' His experience was similar for
cars passing motorcycles. The the car passing tended to assume they need not
go _all_ the way over into the oncoming lane since it was just a motorcycle
and before long the motorcyclist ended up being pushed off the road. So on a
motorcycle you take the lane aggressively, hugging the left side of the lane
markings.

The problem with taking the lane though in my experience is road
situations wherein an overtaking car has little time and sightlines to see
the slower moving vehicle and slow if the oncoming traffic allows for a safe
pass.

My strategy is a compromise. When the oncoming traffic is heavy I cede the
lane and take the shoulder if practiceable. If there is no oncoming traffic
I can see with good sightlines then I take the lane - not as aggressively as
a motorcyle migh, hugging the lane markings, but assertively enough to make
the overtaking vehicle realize he has to move all the way into the other
lane.

In article ,
nmp wrote:
Timothy J. Lee wrote:

In article , nmp
wrote:

I still keep a healthy distance from parked cars though.

A good idea. A bicyclist hugging the parked cars is hard to see by
someone in the traffic side of a parked car trying to check whether it
is safe to open the door (the current car design trend to smaller
windows and big pillars makes it worse).

Smaller windows make no difference. It is still their responsibility to
check. That might even require opening the window and sticking ones head
out.

It may make no difference in determining legal fault in a door opening
crash, but small windows and blind spots increase the risk of such a
crash if the bicyclist is hugging the parked cars. Car occupants may be
legally required to check if it is safe to open the door before opening
the door, but, given how many people have rather sloppy driving skills,
it would not be surprising that they do not check carefully enough
for bicyclists hugging the parked cars before opening the door.

So keeping outside of the door range of parked cars is a defensive
maneuver for the bicyclist.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee
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