# Why (some) bicyclists piss me off... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 4, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047 "2005-01-04T16:30:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/81 "2005-01-05T23:01:33Z")
> [@TheLoadedDog](#): > > My pet hate with cyclists is that when I am on a busy road with lots of traffic lights, and some bozo on a bicycle decides he is going to ignore the red lights, I end up having to overtake the same bicycle multiple times. > > Other than that, I don’t really want to take sides in this thread as I have been on both sides of this equation. Me too. I’m arguing that BOTH sides are being unreasonable. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/82 "2005-01-05T23:05:11Z")
> [@Mr. Miskatonic](#): > > I think by now I have made it clear that I do not take the lane for the sake of slowing other drivers down. In the context of the OP’s comments (“my lane”) he did not consider the size of the lane. He merely considers cyclists to be in the way, and that they should meekly move aside or take some other action to allow him to do as he pleases. I do not feel that this is true, and the uniform vehicle code pretty much supports me. > > You have tried to seperate out the issue of the lane being too small to share. Fine for you, but not what I was commenting on. Well then you weren’t clear. I did not make them seperate issues; you did. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/83 "2005-01-05T23:08:41Z")
In fact, you even enumerated them seperately, to wit: > [@](#): > > The reason I take the lane is a) It is unsafe to stay to the right. or b) I am going as fast as the cars in the lane next to me. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/84 "2005-01-05T23:12:02Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > You can find plain shirts if you look, though. It’s just that no one wears them. AHEM! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/85 "2005-01-05T23:18:27Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > You can only move away from the curb if it’s “reasonably necessary”. That’s what they’ve been saying, you knucklehead. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/86 "2005-01-05T23:22:36Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Actually, there’s a pretty major difference. The California statute says, “When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions…”, the obvious meaning being that you must stay to the right _unless you are unable to_. It leaves a lot less room for interpreting it as, “Aha! The law says I don’t have to be to the right, so I’m taking the whole lane.” You can only move away from the curb if it’s “reasonably necessary”. I don’t see a difference between that and the Texas statute’s formulation. Stay right unless road too narrow/ road hazard/ passing/ turning/ other hazards which are unenumerated. The Texas statute does not impart a duty of using a “reasonably necessary” test, but does this mean anything? How do you judge something like that? It clearly throws the whole thing into the lap of the operator of the bicycle, just like Texas law. Moving over from the far right only under reasonable necessity is certainly implied by the “a person operating a bicycle[0] on a roadway who is moving slower than the other traffic on the roadway shall ride as near as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway, unless:” bit. Moving over from the right is only allowed in Texas under conditions pretty much identical to the ones it is allowed under in California. The statutes are as close to identical as state laws generally get. Perhaps some lawyer who is licensed in both states will come in and give us their opinion on the topic, but there doesn’t seem to be a meaningful difference. It should also be noted that the duty to keep right only applies, in both California and Texas, if you are going slower than the rest of traffic. When I was helping my brothers train for their cycling races we would often average 30+ mph over distances of 30 miles or more at a time. If the speed limit is 30 and I’m cycling at 30 - 35 MPH then in NEITHER state am I obligated to ride on the right of the lane. If cyclists like **Mr. Miskatonic** are going the same speed as the rest of traffic then the lane is theirs and they have no legal duty to keep right whatsoever, in either state. You can move away from the curb if the conditions merit it, OR if you are going the same speed as other traffic. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/87 "2005-01-05T23:22:57Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Well then you weren’t clear. I did not make them seperate issues; you did. You picked this fight with me, Blowero. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/88 "2005-01-05T23:28:45Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > And that’s exactly the problem - too much attitude on both sides of the equation. We have you biking vigilantes who want to enforce your view of what is and isn’t safe on everyone else on the one side, and we have the stubborn motorists like the OP on the other side, who stupidly believe that bikes don’t even _belong_ on the road. > > Geez, why does everyone have to take extreme sides like that? What you are not taking into account is the unequal consequences involved here. Cyclists get het up because idiot drivers could kill them. Stone dead. Kaput. Squashed like a bug. It tends to focus the mind. It also tends to make one quite angry when some fuckwit is quite prepared to put your life in danger while themselves risking a scratch in their paint job, for the sake of them getting where they want to go 30 seconds earlier. You describe “biking vigilantes who want to enforce your view of what is and isn’t safe on everyone else”. This is crap, because let’s face it, to be accurate what you are talking about is cyclists who want to enforce their own personal safety. The safety of motorists doesn’t even come into the equation, to any significant degree. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/89 "2005-01-05T23:31:44Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Legal discussion, or discussion you had on some sort of bicycle forum? I’m guessing the latter. You guess wrong. I’ve discussed it with lawyers in riding clubs. They were pretty clear. I certainly hold them to have better interpetations than ‘Blowero & Blowero Law Firms Inc.’ > [@](#): > > I’m not disputing the situation where the lane is too narrow. Considering that 95% of the roads I ride on are too narrow, I’m disputing the situation where you assert that you are not “slower traffic” when you prevent a car from passing you. Don’t conflate the two situations. [/QUOTE] You are inventing a problem then. > [@](#): > > Yours is not to determine their motivation for wanting to pass you, as if you could read their mind anyway. If they weren’t travelling faster than you, they would never catch up to you, and the situation would never occur. > > If the lane is less than 14 inches, or too narrow for a car and bike to fit side by side, then I guess you’re o.k., but keeping the car from “gunning it to the next light” is not a proper justification. > > Non sequitur. Whether the driver “needs” to pass, or whether he changes lanes more than you prefer has no bearing on whether you are moving slower relative to him. The law does not ask you to evaluate his state of mind. > > Actually, if I’m one of those people who deliberately matches the speed of the car in the next lane to keep people from passing, then yes. > > Maybe you just didn’t explain yourself right. If, as you have _now_ said, there are 2 lanes in your direction, and the lane you are in is too narrow for a car to pass you, and the other lane is available for him to pass you, then I’ve got no problem with that. If that’s the only time you’re doing it, that doesn’t bother me. It didn’t sound like that was what you were saying before. Considering that some 95% of the lanes I ride on are too small, I made an assumption that I would be travelling in a lane too small. (The other 5% are bike laned or I ride to the right). My comment, was directed at the OP, not you, the OP, who seemed to feel that if cyclists were in his lane, then they should be out of his way. Quite frankly, you invented a lot of trouble in your attack on me. I may not have explained myself perfectly, but you sure as hell made a bunch of assumptions that are far worse than my explaination errors. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/90 "2005-01-05T23:42:51Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > [California Vehicle Code Chapter 1 Article 4](http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/tocd11c1a4.htm)Looks pretty darn similar to me. [Subsection 21656](http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21656.htm) says that if you’re taking up the lane because of poor conditions near the right-hand side then you should get off the road at the next opportunity and let people pass if there are five or more vehicles stacked up behind you. Aside from that California also grants the full rights and duties of any other vehicle to bicyclists on roadways. > > Enjoy, > Steven It is pretty much the same since California wrote what is considered the Uniform Vehicle Code that almost all states pretty much copied their bicycle rules that model. (This was not brilliant foresight by California, they were simply getting hints from the Feds since they were the most populous and most car-heavy state). All other states pretty much made copies of this. A few words are changed here and there, but it is going to be pretty much the same all around. Read John Forrester’s “Effective Cycling” for the long version. So saying that CA’s bicycle laws are going to be drasticly different than TX’s laws is laughable. At most you get different wording (practical/possible, etc.) that isn’t going to make much of a difference on the road. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/91 "2005-01-05T23:58:05Z")
I don’t have any problem with the particular practice of bicycling. I have noticed that most people who bicycle around towns are the type of person I hate. I don’t have to worry about cyclists much around my house, in rural Virginia, with curvy, hilly roads where you can’t see what’s round the corner and posted speed limits of 35mph you have to be suicidal to bike out here. There’s been so many cyclists killed in the last decade you see “share the road”/bicycle signs all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/92 "2005-01-06T01:00:34Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > I have noticed that most people who bicycle around towns are the type of person I hate. Unbigoted ones? ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047/93 "2005-01-06T21:11:46Z")
Texas? When the fuck did I move to Texas? \ Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Paris, Netherlands, Oslo, Munich, Frankfurt, Honolulu, Hyeres, Cassis, Manhattan \ Nope, I’ve biked and driven in lots of places, but never been to Paris. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-some-bicyclists-piss-me-off/283047.md?page=4)