I don’t get this. And I’ve done my share of city cycling.
While moving, I will be riding near the right edge of the rightmost through lane.
At a red light, if I’m going straight, I will shift to the center of the lane, behind the cars in front of me, and in front of those behind. When the light turns green, when the car in front of me starts moving, I start moving too, and shift to the right side of the lane again. Since I’m generally quicker off the mark than the drivers are, this isn’t a problem for anyone.
At a red light, if I’m turning right and there’s a dedicated turn lane, I get into that lane, passing cars in the through lane on the right to get there if need be, and get in the center of that lane, remaining there as I move forward until I actually make the turn.
If there is no dedicated turn lane, I do the same thing as when I go straight, except that when I start moving, I stay to the center of the lane until I reach the intersection and can turn. I might cause the car behind me to get to the intersection a second or two later than otherwise, but sometimes a slow-moving car will do the same to them.
traffic has to yield to traffic in progress. so a bicyclist doesn’t have right of way over an auto in the middle of the intersection already making a turn.
when an auto doesn’t have prior right of way then the right of way is given to the cyclist.
Absolutely, if by “right lane” you mean the RT lane. But what I have issue with is not so much the bike blocking- it’s cutting in frontthen blocking. Since usually when a bike cuts he will go to the right, then if there is enuf room for him to cut, there’s enuf room to stay over there and not block.
And in any case, if going straight ahead, a bike has no business cutting in front. Take your turn.
Sorry - Didn’t realize you were referring to a right-turn only lane. Yeah, that’s annoying.
As far as bikes passing on the right, take it up with your legislators. All the states around me allow cars to pass in the same lane as a bike and I’m pretty sure the opposite is also true. I know plenty of cars barely squeeze past me just to get one ahead of the stupid bicyclist, even when I can easily keep up with traffic (which is why I “take the lane” often). I’ll make sure I yell at them to take their turn
That’s certainly a safe and sedentary style, rtfirefly, but it sounds like a simplification.
Say you’re riding along a single carriageway road, you’re in the US so on the right and being passed by faster moving traffic. Cars start to slow up as you approach an intersection - seeing a red light ahead, you’re thinking I need to get out into the centre of the lane here, to take my place in the queueing traffic? Surely not - sounds more dangerous than a sensible filter up the inside, alert to any change in the traffic signal.
It depends. If I filter to the front, I can generally move quickly into the intersection on green. Once I’m inside the intersection and there’s more space, I’ll drift over far enough to let the straight-ahead traffic pass me easily.
If instead I sit in the lane 6 cars back, I have to wait for the car in front of me to accelerate before I can start moving. Then I’m holding everyone behind me up for 6 car lengths till I get to the intersection where there’s space for them to pass.
It depends on the intersection and traffic of course. I won’t filter ahead unless I’m sure I have enough time and space to do it safely. Nor if it looks like staying behind would be less disruptive.
I will filter up if my doing so will cause less of an impediment to traffic behind me than if I didn’t. If there are, say, six vehicles at a red, and I get behind the last, those behind me might not make the light because I’m holding them up. So I filter up and try and get across as fast as I can, then move over to share the lane so they can continue on. If there are only one or two vehicles, I’ll take my place in the line.
And if I’m in the front and there are vehicles behind that want to make a right (I turn around and look for a signal), I move forward and to the left so they can get by and turn.
if a bicyclist stopped at the rear of the line of stopped cars they might not even make it through that light.
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You mean the bicyclist might not get through the light if he has to line up behind cars? Same is true for a car.
Where did you get that idea? In many places bicyclists on the street have to yield right-of-way using the same rules as cars. In some jurisdictions they are treated as pedestrians, depends on local laws.
I ride on sidewalks whenever possible. When I am forced into the street, if a car is stopped at a stop sign and there are no other cars in the intersection, I will turn and ride BEHIND that car in order instead of passing in front of them in order to deny them a chance to ram me.
Whenever possible, I try to put my bike in places that cars do not have even the option of running me over.
To quote someone upthread, you can’t have it both ways. Either you are a vehicle and you are in the road, and follow those laws, OR you are a pedestrian on the sidewalk and you follow those laws.
In many cities, riding a bike on the sidewalk is itself illegal, not to mention a hazard to pedestrians.
I’d rather explain myself to a judge (or, realistically, pay a small fine) than be carried in a box or crippled for life. I wouldn’t even consider obeying the traffic laws if doing so meant risking my life unless the punishment for disobeying was long term imprisonment or execution.\
If a piece of paper written by a few old white men in some far off state capital says I have to ride in the street and risk a swerve from a careless driver turning me into roadkill, fuck em.
I don’t ride fast enough to be a hazard to pedestrians, and the sidewalks I ride on are usually deserted because in this city no one walks or bikes at all.
You’re much more likely to be injured or killed riding on the sidewalk, than you are riding on the road. The sidewalk is by far the most dangerous place to ride a bicycle.
Yes, it’s true, the sidewalk is more dangerous. Cars leaving driveways won’t be looking for bikes on the sidewalk going at a higher rate of speed than a pedestrian, and they often nose out across the sidewalk to look for traffic. Many cyclist injuries happen because of those scenarios. If you are too afraid to ride on the road because of safety, best just walk then.
I see people riding the sidewalks here and I have an okay with a proviso. My main complaint with sidewalks is that they are on the right side of the cars. Drivers are not looking for anything on their right when they make a right turn. If you are on a bicycle on the sidewalk, you are sitting precisely where drivers ARE NOT looking. Why should they look for you? Drivers are trained to look for other cars, not bikes.
At the same time, if the cyclist is really diligent and very wary, the sidewalk isn’t a death trap.
I should note that I am in no way defending the patently illegal and criminally stupid behavior of many cyclists. At the same time and you see this anytime bicycle commuting is discussed, drivers (nor cyclists) know what cyclists are supposed to do. My State’s driver’s license test does not mention bicycles. In the other thread, people act as if the laws for cyclists are vague or not described. The truth is that the law for cyclists are very well defined, but simply unknown to most.
I carry a small booklet of the Florida traffic laws with an emphasis on cyclists precisely because every so often I get pulled over by a Cop for not being on the sidewalk.
I think that the reason that discussions here about cycling get so heated is that often both sides just KNOW that they know the laws when in reality, it is what they think and they are wrong.
Last year, while leaving a taxi, I opened the door (obviously on the right, in order not to open it on the traffic side) and a cyclist passing on the right brutally slammed into it, and was quite pissed. I don’t think I was in the wrong. Nobody is supposed to pass on the right, especially when you’re in the rightmost lane.
So, there’s that.
Oh, and since it mentioned : as a pedestrian (I don’t drive), I hate seeing cyclist on the sidewalk. They’ve no business being there and are quite dangerous.
