And they are right next to the kerb so that when a car is pulling out into the street and stopping for a stop sign they pull right into and block the bike lane. The bicyclist must, now that the lane is blocked, check over his left shoulder and then steer around the stopped car all while making sure the stopped car doesn’t pull out in front of him.
Or he could just stay to the left of the more than useless but actually dangerous bike lane.
But, I seem to be getting away from the OP. What you do is, you drop back about 50 yards behind the cyclist(s) and then you drop your car down 1 gear and give it wide open throttle, while turning on your bright headlights an vigorously honking your horn.
They’ll scatter like quail and you’ll have a clear pathway.
Riding double file and blocking traffic is not cool, but be careful about assuming that the bike lane is “part of the road and just as well maintained”. Many such lanes around here (Si Valley) are filled with glass and are no good for cycling. Most cyclist much prefer to be in a nice bike lane if possible, but sometimes it’s better to hug the outside of the lane. My experience is that cars are more often on the asshole side of things than cyclists. The car lanes are plenty wide to safely pass, but it seems that many motorists want to intimidate you back into the bike lane. If you see a single file cyclist in the road rather than the bike lane, assume that there is something wrong with that lane. Don’t be a jerk.
When cycling in most bike lanes it is necessary to swerve to avoid the debris that inevitably gets swept or collects there. This is very unsafe.
Then once you get to an intersection were you need to turn left-from the far right side of the road-boy that makes for a safe ride!
I have ridden on bike lanes in S Cal, Germany and Georgia . They are great where traffic volume is high and they are taken care of. Unfortunately they are rarely well maintained.
But, I seem to be getting away from the OP. What you do is, you drop back about 50 yards behind the cyclist(s) and then you drop your car down 1 gear and give it wide open throttle, while turning on your bright headlights an vigorously honking your horn.
They’ll scatter like quail and you’ll have a clear pathway.
In the town I grew up they had bike paths of sorts. An asphalt path between the sidewalk and the road, so it went sidewalk, two feet of grass, bike path, two feet of grass, road.
They sucked. Oh, how they sucked. They were never swept and always had grit and gravel left over from the winter sanding and salting of the roads and sidewalks.
But the worst ever: I had a bicycle courrier job, and was heading downhill, on the bike path and was going at a pretty fast clip. I look up and what to I see, centred perfectly in the bike path? A telephone pole! From that point on telephone poles were planted smack dab in the centre of the bike path for as far as I could see! Dumbfuck city planners!
As for cylcists riding six abreast on a busy street? They’re assholes. Ride single file. If you need to train en masse for passing strategies etc., do so on rural roads on the weekends. That’s what they do around here to get the road training they need.
The reasons I bike to work in the road instead of on a bike path:
[ul]
[li]I can go 50-100% faster on the road than on the bike path. I can get to work in 35 minutes if I ride in the road (about 9 miles, and the time includes stopping at any of the six traffic lights on my route when they are red – usually I can time it so I only hit one or two lights) as opposed to closer to an hour on the bike path.[/li][li]Riding my bike on the road takes ten or 15 minutes longer than my 20-25 minute drive. Contrary to what some drivers would like to think, taking my car off the road will make your commute faster even if you have to slow down for a few seconds to pass me. A competent driver will get stuck behind me for 30 seconds at the most and I would say less than 10 seconds on average. Incompetent drivers are sometimes too scared to pass and yet still nudge up right near my rear wheel for a minute or two before they pass.[/li][li]The bike path is narrow, twisting, bumpy, and also has runners, walkers, dog-walkers, and stroller-pushing parents. The road has plenty of room for a car to pass me while the bike path often does not have room for me to pass someone else.[/li][li]The bike path does not go the whole route, and in fact, people on the bike path will get to parts where a sign says “Bike path on roadway.” There is no bike path or lane on the roadway. What the sign actually means is that the roadway is also a bike pathway.[/li][li]I can.[/li][/ul]
The speed limit on this road is 25mph (I’m sure I break it going downhill sometimes) yet some drivers still act like I’m a complete asshole for making them slow to 20-25mph so they can pass me.
This road is also commonly used by groups of cyclists numbering anywhere from two to 50 at a time. Yes, they often ride abreast, but they are also going right around the 25mph speed limit. I don’t know if it’s legal in Maryland or DC to ride like that, but sometimes breaking the law is a necessity to protest certain things, like the fact that most idiotic, chip-eating, lard-assed, lazy, self-centered drivers that can’t plan far enough ahead to allow an extra 10 seconds to get around a bicycle would actually be better off in numerous ways if more people were cycling on the road instead of driving on it. I say a hearty “Fuck you!” to those drivers out there that get pissed at being behind cyclists, especially those cyclists that are actually going within 5mph of the speed limit.
It also should be noted that, in America, a lot of the problem lies with the design of the roads and cities. There wouldn’t even be this problem or animosity between bicycle riders and drivers if pedestrians, cyclists, and better public transportation had been a factor when designing roads in a lot of the USA.
Preach it !
Yes, they do. Sometimes, I see cars cut off 18 wheelers at the exit to the George Washington Bridge. One or twice, I’ve seen them cut the truck off too tightly. I don’t think I’ve seen a fatality yet… but I have seen the rear end of a SUV flattened like a baking sheet, and the car torn around and knocked into the median.
It’s not a legal issue. It’s a safety issue.
country, that dropping back thing is being a bit of a prick.
You don’t want to know what can happen to you if someone on a bike screws up… or just doesn’t care. Bikes, like deer, are exactly the right height to go over your grille and through your windshield.
(Re: Glass. Have I mentioned I love the teflon inserts in my tires? Great things)
Re: cyclists on roads. One is cool. Ten, double file are cool. Thirty are cool, as long as they’re single file.
Six abreast, right out.
Are we in disagreement with any of that?
Bicycle paths suck.
Bicycle lanes are a god-send.
Provided that they are well maintained and clean, and essentially the same thing as the road with no dangerous seams that would prevent a cyclist from moving into the road to avoid glass/branches/parked cars etc. are great. Again, like TheR said, all we need is an extra foot or two in each lane to make most any road relatively safe for both cyclists.
I will always do my best to impede faster traffic in the smallest way possible to still safely ride. I will be considerate and careful, and that is all that I ask from cars.
I agree, let’s just all become fat tubby people who do nothing on the weekends who drive SUV’s through the suburbs from an all you can eat lunch to a movie to dinner. Let’s just give up any hope of seeing the outside world without a windshield or car window. And people that cannot afford cars? I thought that they were kinda like the homeless you know. How dare they keep on living? Can’t these people just go die or something already?
However, before we take that radical step, can we go ahead and exclude people with unhealthy lifestyles from Medicaid, I’m sick of paying their goddamned medical bills. Really, how rude.
Well, this is getting pretty polarized, but there is some middle ground here. I think that most of us can agree that:
[list=a]
[li]Cyclists that get in the way are just as assholian as drivers who get miffed at a ten second delay[/li][li]Our cities could use to improve thoroughfares for cyclists[/li][li]We should ALL be cautious and never just assume we have the right of way[/li][/list=a]
An Arky,
I can agree with that post completely.
Amen.
I would like to fill in a few details as to why I participated in this pit. I really don’t have anything against cyclists.
For one thing, I have learned that many bike paths are not as well kept as they are where I live.
We have a beautiful 10 mile path that parallels the highway that connects two of the primary towns in the County where I work. I drive the highway between those towns every day. I know the bike path. It is well maintained. The only way it could be better is if it was covered so people would not get rained on. 
I also know the road. It’s dangerous. It’s so busy they are planning on making it 4 lane.
The State highway that connects these towns is very busy, and has a large number of tourists on it. Lots of buses too. We have free public transportation. Very little, if any shoulder is available for cyclists.
Still, some cyclists insist on riding on the HIGHWAY. This is completely counter intuitive to me. This is a 50-60 mph STATE HIGHWAY (can’t stress that enough). The bike path will have people riding slower that a cyclist has to pass. But really, I can’t imagine it is more dangerous than having buses pass you on a 2 lane highway. Makes no sense to me whatsoever.
There is also the Dam Road. About a mile long, it is, as the name states, a road over a dam. Two lanes, absolutely no shoulder. The pavement ends at a guardrail on each side. It is posted that bicycles are not allowed on the Dam Road. They are to use the bike path right next to it.
Still, some cyclists use the Dam Road. Forget laws, forget safety, they act like it’s their divine right. That’s one of the reasons that I made the “Holier than thou” statement earlier.
Most of the cyclists that use the highway are training. Racers. Good riders. Many of the tourists that come up here are site seeing. All it takes is on inattentive driver, or rider, or a flat tire. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
This doesn’t seem to matter where I live. We (I work for the County) built them cyclists their own road. But there are those that refuse to use it.
Umm. Rats.
Make that ‘built the cyclists’.
I’m not usually this anal. But that sounded like I just got off the set of Deliverance II. 
Be safe.
D
Two things, first, do some reading on aggressive driving and road rage etc. There is a lot going on with the drivers of cars that doesn’t have anything to do with transportation. (That is one of the reasons that they act like you are a “complete asshole”)
Second, the animosity is there with motorcyclists and automobile drivers and we are not impeding traffic, we are in fact faster than the cars if we choose to be. No, the problems we are talking about are not about road design.
Hell, the cars can’t even get along with each other and when
the irritant is something as small as a bicycle or motorcycle, well, there you go.
But, again I stray from the OP - First you drop back about 50 yards…etc.
So if the bike lanes adjacent to the road are so bad to ride on, due to storm drains and cars pulling in and other such things, how do bicyclists possibly ride on roads that don’t have bike lanes? The ones where they are essentially riding in an unmarked bike lane anyway?
Love it, just love it. Nothing more dangerous than the occasional Killer Squirrel, in-line skater, walking moms with baby carriages, and the occasional horse or coyote turd. Paved, it will eventually link Georgia with Alabama.
Fellow cyclists may consider this a personal invite from me to ride the trail some fine Spring morning. I’ll even spring for breakfast and/or a brewski at lunch. E-mail’s in the profile.
One thing to consider: my top speed is 20 mph in a sprint.
Thanks
Q
Forgot to mention the occasional deer!
Q
You are so close to being right but, as has been pointed out this is an incorrect statement and is not supported in law.
The correct statement should read
The heavier object always has the right of weight.
My Darn Snake Legs
Your lifestyle has absolutelynothing whatsoever with the right of other road users to continue living in safety.
Maybe your intemperance at other road users, especially slower ones has more to do with your inability to find less stressful and more remunerative employment than with any obstruction caused by other road users.
With your hectic lifestyle one can only hope that your intolerance is not taken out on others whom you might happen to see as inferior - which is something that comes across in you post where you describe cyclists as “cocksuckers”
Examine yourself and see which direction you really ought to apply your insults.