It's a fucking bike lane, moron

Sitting at the light, in the bike lane on College St, waiting to cross Bathurst.

‘Bike lanes’ are lanes where bikes go, and where cars aren’t supposed to drive or park. It’s true that the lane on College is always full of cars driving and parking. But they’re not supposed to do it. It’s still a bike lane. In theory at least it’s meant for people on bikes.

You want to use it as a right turn lane? Tough shit. It’s got a picture of a bike on it, not an arrow pointing to the right. Wait for the car in front of you to proceed through the intersection, make sure there are no bikes immediately to the right of, or behind you, then make your turn.

DO NOT honk at me because I am in the bike lane. I’m on my freakin’ bike ! I belong here ! I am not going to hop on to the sidewalk because you want to turn right. Not only will that make pedestrians mad at me, but it’s illegal for me to be there, and besides, it’s my fucking lane ! Lucky I was wearing mittens or you were soooo getting the finger.

And, do NOT, under any circumstances, squeeze between me and the car (in the “car” lane) to the left of me, running over my foot and causing my handlebar to scrape against your car, in order to turn right in front of me.

If you do choose to do this, it’s a good idea to avoid nearly hitting a car that’s already in the intersection (on his green light, your red), causing him to honk and swerve in order to avoid hitting your sorry ass.

You especially shouldn’t do this in freezing rain, where roads are slippery, visibility is poor, and brakes fail. Fucking wait for the green light. Would that kill you?

I know it’s too late for the waste of space that I encountered last week (and if he’s reading the boards, then I don’t want to play here any more). I’d be surprised if he made it home alive anyway. But I’ve nearly been killed in the bike lane often enough that I just had to say something.

At least you have bike lanes. Around here, all the cars want me off the road, and all the pedestrians want me off the sidewalk!

I have to mix between going on the road / sidewalk depending on the traffic of people versus cars. Since there are no bike lanes, I end up on the sidewalk most of the time, it’s a good thing there aren’t very many people walking around here. The drivers around here are relentless though. Seeing as how there are lot of hills, I can’t go full speed or even normal bike speed up them, so I have to do it on the side of the road (which I usually can’t, parked cars) or on the sidewalk. Agh.

From what I’ve heard, saying that there are stupid drivers in Toronto is like saying that the CN Tower is kinda tall. (Replace “Toronto” with other city names as needed.)

Stay safe, cowgirl.

See that dashed line at the end of the bike lane? That’s a right-turn lane. Get out of the way, jenny. If you’re going straight ahead, get into the main lane and move back to the bike lane when you’ve gone through the intersection. Besides, why the hell are you riding in that weather? Did you have a light on? Did you consider that by distracting that driver at a crucial time, you caused him to violate another car’s right-of-way?

I’m assuming, of course, that bike lanes in Canada are the same as bike lanes here; I’m usually more sympathetic to cyclists than this, but ill-informed self-righteous ranting really, really peeves me.

Nametag has it. At least in California (don’t know the Texas law yet), you can drive in a bike lane up to 200 feet (IIRC–may be a bit less) feet prior to the intersection.

Frankly, if you’re in the bike lane at an intersection and you’re blocking cars, then you’re being rather rude. Whenever I was going to go straight at an intersection on my bike, I moved to the left most part of the right lane in order to allow cars to safely make a right turn.

Ass - u - me. It remains a bike lane for its entire length. They must be different in Canada. As I stated above, the car must wait its turn, in the car lane. Other drivers try to use the bike lane for a right-hand turn lane, it’s true, but they always seem to know they’re not supposed to be doing it.

As for your other questions:

I’m riding in that weather because I would much rather be riding than sitting in traffic or waiting for a streetcar. As far as I know it’s still legal to bike in shitty weather.

Yes I had a light on. I distracted the driver by sitting in a bike lane, waiting for the light to change. I will not apologize for that.

Please tell me how I was ill-informed?

Ass - u - me. It remains a bike lane for its entire length. They must be different in Canada. As I stated above, the car must wait its turn, in the car lane. Other drivers try to use the bike lane for a right-hand turn lane, it’s true, but they always seem to know they’re not supposed to be doing it.

As for your other questions:

I’m riding in that weather because I would much rather be riding than sitting in traffic or waiting for a streetcar. As far as I know it’s still legal to bike in shitty weather.

Yes I had a light on. I distracted the driver by sitting in a bike lane, waiting for the light to change. I will not apologize for that.

Please tell me how I was ill-informed?

Um, you’re complaining about someone else being ill-informed when you admit that you’re having to guess the facts? Okaaaay.

Oh, and why the hell shouldn’t someone ride in bad weather? Is there some unwritten rule that bikes are only allowed out when morons might not cream them in their own lane? What’s a light got to do with it? He apparently knew cowgirl was there, he honked her.

Or, what cowgirl said. The feengers, they type so slowly…

I nearly thought this was a rant about the bike lanes in Madison. Most of them allow other traffic at certain times (like for right turns), but there is one that is all-bikes, all the time, no kidding. It runs along a particular main artery one-way street, the opposite direction of the flow of traffic on the street, and has a concrete median separating it out from the street. It’s clearly marked as bikes only, but I recall at least one incident from when I lived there where a car tried to fit down it and discovered that it didn’t quite work.

“Besides, why the hell are you riding in that weather? Did you have a light on?” (Posted by Nametag)

WHAT WEATHER? When did she mention weather? Why a light? When did she mention it was dark out? I think you’re assuming (from the State of California) that December in Toronto has snow up to your knees and darkness 'til spring.

Wow! Whenever I think I’ve seen it all, someone always proves me wrong.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to put my snowshoes on to go feed the polar bears outside my igloo.

It’s not “rude” to be in a bike lane and block cars! I would have moved farther to the right except there was another cyclist there.

Guess what? I don’t live in Texas. Nor California. Funny thing that. In Toronto bike lanes and right-hand turn lanes are different animals. When the bike lane morphs into a right-hand turn lane (like west on College at Spadina), it is clearly marked, and I keep to the left of it so that cars can turn right, to my right. And guess what? When I do that, people honk at me. I can’t win for losing.

So tell me, what makes it okay for a driver to run over my foot?

Ryle, as you can see, having bike lanes doesn’t much matter to the safety of your life or limb.

Orbifold, Dead Badger, Ferret, thanks for the support ! Yes, some drivers are stupid, but I try not to dwell on it because most are not. It’s just jackasses like these that you remember. And there are enough arsehole cyclists around too, once I was nearly hit twice in succession by two cyclists, wearing headphones, who didn’t hear my frantic bell-ringing and shouting.

But still it’s the best way to commute.

Cheeky - thanks for the patriotic defence, but I did mention the freezing rain and poor visibility. You do make a valid point, though: I have have dodged idiot drivers in all kinds of weather. Today is beautiful and sunny but that won’t make a whit of difference to my drive home.

Waitaminute, you’re a bicyclist and you were sitting at a red light instead of going straight through???

:eek: :faints dead away:

“You especially shouldn’t do this in freezing rain, where roads are slippery, visibility is poor, and brakes fail.”

I’m the ass now. I misunderstood it as: ESPECIALLY then, but that wasn’t the case this time.

I will now take my foot out of my mouth so I can so as to sew it shut properly, with fishing line.

Also, I don’t understand the driver’s god-given right to make a right turn. There was a vehicle (in this case a bike) waiting for the light to change to proceed straight. If she had been in a car rather than a bike would the driver also demanded that the car moved so that he could turn right? In general (although not always) people on bikes go slower than people in cars and I understand the reasons for bikes not to block traffic. In this case a person on a bike and a person in a car would be going exactly the same speed…zero.

People just need to share the road.

Better to be honked at then hit.

Unless the bike lane is seperated from the car lane by a solid median, I get into the car lane no matter what at an intersection. It’s the safest thing to do–most drivers in the right lane aren’t used to checking their right side for bike traffic, and even if they do cyclists are often in the blind spot.

I’ve rarely, if ever, been honked at for doing so–most drivers realise you’re doing it so that they can turn safely. Sometimes the safest courses of action on a bike seem counter-intuitive, e.g., take the entire lane on a narrow bridge, don’t ride in the shoulder (or bike lane) if it’s full of crap the city hasn’t bothered to sweep, etc.

spudbucket: A cyclist in the right hand lane doesn’t have to move to the left to let cars turn right. It’s just politer and safer.
I cycled competitively in college, and I got a lot of miles in. Riding defensively is way more productive then ranting on message boards (even if, as you say, the laws in Toronto are different and the rant was righteous).

DOH! Move the aside to spudbucket to the end of the post.

Point taken in terms of safety, although in my experience this is not a big issue in most circumstances. Might have been in the situation described in the OP. Probably more polite but I think it is important for commuting bicyclists to be assertive about road rights in situations where they can do so safely. Otherwise, there will be no reason for motorists to change attitudes…

…not that the idiots out there will likely do so but you gotta try…:slight_smile:

Metacom: Sorry, you “get into the car lane no matter what” at an intersection? Here the bike lanes are much too narrow to be right-turn lanes, which is why I stay in (and, as noted, if it’s actually a right-turn lane, I move to the lane to the left of it, honkers be damned).

I admire your cool-headed attitude towards drivers. I myself am cautious/timid/terrified on the road because the close encounters I have had (and have seen) really freak me out. And agree that the safest things are often counter-intuitive, and for me that often means getting honked. For instance, they never clear the snow from bike lanes on one major east-west artery, and another bike lane I frequently use is filled with pot-holes (which become lakes when it rains), so I take to the road and meet with disapproval.

I guess I just need to stop taking it so personally. It just really pisses me off when other people’s carelessness nearly gets me splattered, despite my best efforts.

Just to clarify, here’s what I mean:



   | |    :    |b|
   | |    :    |i|  
   | |    :    |k|
   | |    :    |e|
---+ |    :    |s+---

....              ...
---+ |    :g   | +---
   | |    : CC |b|      b <- Bad position for you
   | |    : CC | |      g <- Good position for you
   | |    :    | |      C <- Car


If I approach an intersection and I’m in a bike lane that is to the left of a lane of cars that could possibly want to turn right, I get out of the bike lane before the intersection and move to the left of the right-most car lane (where the “g” is in the picture above). This way cars that turn right aren’t going to turn across my path. If it’s a narrow lane that’s right next to traffic, this is especially important because the cars in the right lane may not be expecting anything to be to their right!

Basically, I treat every right hand lane as a “right turn lane” at intersections.

Hm. What happens if the car to your right is going straight through? This happened to me a few weeks ago: at one intersection, I was cut off by a car entering the bike lane to turn right. At the next intersection I saw another car beginning the same move, so I moved to his left, and then he proceeded through the intersection and I was trapped between two lanes of traffic going in the same direction.

When I cycled in Bristol and all roads I used were 2 lanes, cyclists rode down the centre of the road all the time. I admired them because they were always visible, to everyone, but I was having enough trouble already what with the traffic going in the wrong direction :wink: that I didn’t do it.

I think a lot of unwritten traffic ‘laws’ come out of how people commonly behave on roads, so in Bristol cars were accustomed to cyclists in the centre of the road. I haven’t seen anyone do that in Toronto, although now I will keep an eye out for it. Do a lot of cyclists do it where you bike?