A Plague of Bicyclists

[english si]

Lucky. Here they make us stop.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.13571,-81.829176&spn=0.015346,0.028346&gl=us&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=28.135715,-81.829071&panoid=t-maru5hH8_z32LU2LqRig&cbp=12,231.2,,0,8.86

That's brilliant. Get a photo of that and send it into Cycle Facility of the Month as they'd love it.

[corco]

Maybe I would... all I know is that I only ever see them out on their bikes. I rarely ever see them at a restaurant, at an event, etc. So I assume if you've gone through the effort to put on spandex, you are looking for exercise or something outdoorsy to do, not to get somewhere in particular (after all, spandex is not a great fashion statement if you're doing anything else).

Typically they'll bring a change of clothes and possibly shower immediately after getting of their bikes because a dude in spandex that's just ridden a bike 30 miles typically doesn't smell all that great, so you're unlikely to see a long distance bike rider in spandex off their bike.

Also, I am not so much assigning fault when I say they are in my way as I am merely stating a fact. If I want to move and you are impeding my ability to do so, you are, by definition, getting in my way. And if you fail to recognize this and get out of my way, then I have every right to be pissed off at you. I always avoid trying to get in people's way as much as I can and get out of their way as much as I can if I find myself in it. I expect people to do the same for me. But some people are obnoxious and don't give a shit if they're being an obstacle.

I certainly agree with all those things in principle- people should be polite, and there are bikers that are not polite, and that's shitty. In this case though, it seems like the very act of a bike being on the road is by your definition an obstacle, and that's not really fair. A bike can't be expected to pull off the road and stop every time a car comes by- there has to be some give and take. If they ride in the middle of the lane until they're certain that you see them (which will naturally be some time after you actually see them), and then move over to the right when the bike judges you can safely pass without running them off the road (the bike, by nature of a being on a bike is in that situation a lot more than you are, so it makes some sense to defer to their experience), that seems like they're being fairly polite. Now, some cyclists don't do that, but that's not everybody.

If a facility is designed for cars, then cars have priority for use of it, yes. But also note that I didn't say "public road", I said "road with a 45+ MPH speed limit".

The thing is that if we're talking rural areas, those are the same thing. A road with a 45 MPH speed limit may very well be the only facility a bike can legitimately ride on, and in that case that's where they'll ride. If you think cars get priority over other vehicles in that situation anyway, well, I guess I don't know what to say.

That's why they allow bikes and pedestrians on certain freeways out here where there's no other facility, because you can't deny or even prioritize road access- all persons have equal right to be on a roadway, no matter how they are traveling. It can be restricted and limited if there's other/channelized facilities, but it can't be outright denied.

Certainly you can appreciate that in New England, most rural roads with 45 MPH speed limits predate the automobile (hell, in Montana most inter-city roads predate the automobile)- the car wasn't there first and the car doesn't have any more or less right to travel on those thoroughfares than anything else, nor should it. Roads were being paved for dust control long before the car- the only thing that really makes a random two lane road in Connecticut "designed for the car" is maybe some curve grading- even the concept of lanes and navigation signs existed prior to the automobile. Speed limits and other traffic laws were (and are) designed to calm the use of a motorized vehicle when they started wreaking havoc on other people's abilities to use the road. If you're talking a rural road in New England, it's hardly the road that is designed for the car- the road is just a piece of blacktop, and laws in place allow you to travel on that road but keep your actions restrained. The reason that speed limit is 45 instead of, say, 65, is precisely because other modes of transport have equal right to the road and you need to be going slow enough to see and react to them. The road has been there for a lot longer than the motorized vehicle- we had to make some modifications to that road to accommodate you crazy folks and your motorcars. That doesn't make it your road, that just means that cars were a bigger nuisance than anything before them so we had to make more substantial modifications than anything before them, so we aren't denying you your right to travel on it.

This applies in urban areas too, and on every road. The difference in urban areas is that there's enough traffic that it makes sense to channelize traffic with bike lanes and sidewalks. You're focusing on the road as a blacktop to blacktop stretch of pavement- which isn't what a road is. A road is the entire developed portion of the right of way- in urban areas, you're not annoyed because we channel different types of traffic. In rural areas, there's no need to do that so we don't, and then there's areas in between. So where we don't channel, the blacktop portion of the road IS the sidewalk and IS the bike lane.

Realistically, if you are in a car and come up on a bike or a horse or a combine, it's your duty to slow down and pass when it is safe to do so. I agree that ideally, people will be polite and try to facilitate that pass, and that it's terribly rude when people don't and maybe that should be legislated to a degree if it's really that much of a problem, but saying that cars get priority on a random rural road...that's a tough one to justify.

[NE2]

the bike, by nature of a being on a bike

[Duke87]

Typically they'll bring a change of clothes and possibly shower immediately after getting of their bikes because a dude in spandex that's just ridden a bike 30 miles typically doesn't smell all that great, so you're unlikely to see a long distance bike rider in spandex off their bike.

An interesting thought. It's absolutely plausible to do this, my question is, how commonly is it done? In the particular area I grew up in there was no such thing as riding a bicycle as a mode of transportation. Everyone drove everywhere. If you saw someone on their bike it was usually in workout clothes (if not explicitly spandex) and known/understood that they were bike riding for the purpose of exercise. All of them stayed off to the right, none of them ever rode in groups or in the center of the travel lane. Those things, at least in my experience, are a recent phenomenon, usually encountered in areas with nice scenery (another obvious sign it's recreational).

people should be polite, and there are bikers that are not polite, and that's shitty. In this case though, it seems like the very act of a bike being on the road is by your definition an obstacle, and that's not really fair. A bike can't be expected to pull off the road and stop every time a car comes by- there has to be some give and take.

What you're saying is fair. I'm not complaining about people who don't move over the instant I approach them (that isn't reasonable). I'm complaining about people who don't move over at all (often because they're in groups and they don't understand the concept of single file)

If a facility is designed for cars, then cars have priority for use of it, yes. But also note that I didn't say "public road", I said "road with a 45+ MPH speed limit".

The thing is that if we're talking rural areas, those are the same thing. A road with a 45 MPH speed limit may very well be the only facility a bike can legitimately ride on, and in that case that's where they'll ride. If you think cars get priority over other vehicles in that situation anyway, well, I guess I don't know what to say.

What I question is how useful a bicycle really is as a mode of transportation in a rural area. Seems to me that if you've got more than a few miles to cover you should be in a car.

But then, I'm mentally biased since I've never taken a short trip in a rural area, so I tend to want to assume there's no such thing when for people who live there I'm sure sometimes there is.

Certainly you can appreciate that in New England, most rural roads with 45 MPH speed limits predate the automobile {...} the only thing that really makes a random two lane road in Connecticut "designed for the car" is maybe some curve grading

I guarantee you that any road in New England with a 45+ MPH speed limit has had its alignment significantly straightened out both horizontally and vertically compared to what was there 100 years ago in order to allow for those speeds. There are little former alignments all over the place. And the purpose of all those upgrades is obviously to allow for cars to be able to use the road at speeds horses could never achieve.

The reason that speed limit is 45 instead of, say, 65, is precisely because other modes of transport have equal right to the road and you need to be going slow enough to see and react to them.

I'm pretty sure the reason the speed limit is 45 is because New England likes to underpost things.
And anyways, you're right about needing to see and react to things, and sightlines do influence speed limits, but on a rural road that's more about seeing other cars (or other things, like deer) than it is about bikes and pedestrians.

in urban areas, you're not annoyed because we channel different types of traffic. In rural areas, there's no need to do that so we don't, and then there's areas in between. So where we don't channel, the blacktop portion of the road IS the sidewalk and IS the bike lane.

And this is where I am going to have to fundamentally disagree. If there is no sidewalk then the road is not designed for pedestrians, and if there are no bike markings then the road is not designed for bikes either. This means if you are walking or biking in the road you are using space intended for cars and would do well to yield it to them when there is a conflict.

If I am walking down a road with no sidewalk I am going to stay off the pavement as much as I can, and if I have to be on the pavement I will hug the edge of it as much as I can. By doing this I'm staying out of the way of cars as much as I can, and also protecting myself from being run over.

[corco]

It's certainly fine to disagree as a matter of preference, and to think that law needs to be changed to give cars priority, but as a matter of law and as a matter of fact- any lawyer will concur with me on this, it's simply not true that cars have higher priority on a typcial, non-limited access road than other forms of travel.

Here's a nice lit review on the matter http://humantransport.org/sidewalks/humanpower.htm

The source may seem biased, but the case law it cites is not biased, it's a matter of fact and law, so I'd read that by looking at the court cases as opposed to the intervening text.

Google the Kansas Supreme Court Case Swift v. City of Topeka- it's dated, but has never been overturned and has been reaffirmed. It probably sums up the question the most succinctly. Notable:

Public streets are highways, and every citizen has the right to use them. Both the sidewalks, and roadways must remain unobstructed, so that people can walk along one without interruption, or danger, or drive along the other without delay or apprehension. One of the most imperative duties of the City governments in this country, is to keep their public streets in such a condition, that citizens can travel along them with safety, and without any unnecessary delay. Each citizen has the absolute right, to choose for himself the mode of conveyance he desires, whether it be by wagon or carriage, by horse, motor, or electric car, or by bicycle, or astride of a horse, subject to the sole condition that he will observe all those requirements, that are known as the law of the road.

Here's a Canadian write up- Canadian road law is based on the same common law as US road law and is equally applicable, including the U.S. Uniform Vehicle Code, which affirms that cyclists also have a right to the road. Because of this, you'll note that it cites both US and Canadian court cases/policies. http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.pdf

The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, to which the U.S. is a signatory, reaffirmed this in 1968. http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/conventn/crt1968e.pdf

You won't find a court case that dictates that bikes and pedestrians have less right to access and be on a roadway or that roads are intended for cars any more or less than any other form of travel because they don't exist. A roadway is held in the public trust and giving cars priority would be blatant discrimination (cars are expensive, courts have upheld that driver's licenses for cars are acceptable because people have the right to travel on roadways without a driver's license). You think WSDOT wants to allow bikes on I-90 over parts of Snoqaulmie Pass? They certainly don't, but they have to because the law requires them to allow access on a road held in the public trust where there is not access to a parallel facility. I've seen bikes riding on it. It looks quite uncomfortable, but they have a right to be on that road, so it's not up to me or you to judge them for it.

[NE2]

I'm complaining about people who don't move over at all (often because they're in groups and they don't understand the concept of single file)

I don't think you understand the concept of single file. If a two-abreast group of cyclists changes to single file, it takes twice as long to pass, which is twice as long that you're in the other lane. There may be a slight benefit when it's one or two cyclists that move to the right, since you don't spend as much time moving left, but when it's a whole group the total time is greater.

PS: it takes more time to pass a faster cyclist. Quit bitching about slow speeds.

PPS: hell yeah - I hasn't heard about the latest here. http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22517938/colorado-supreme-court-overturns-black-hawks-ban-bikes

[corco]

Oh, whoa, neat. Okay, and in the findings http://www.cobar.org/opinions/opinion.cfm?opinionid=8822&courtid=2

In sum, tracing the General Assembly's enactments makes it clear that bicyclists are afforded all the rights and responsibilities of other vehicles on our roadways, including being required to comply with state and municipal regulations. Local authorities, in turn, are allowed to regulate bicycle traffic, including prohibiting bicycles under specific conditions. In the case before us, the Bicyclists argue that Black Hawk did not comply with the statutory conditions in prohibiting bicycles. We agree.

As we previously described more fully, home-rule cities may regulate bicycle traffic within their jurisdiction but may prohibit bicycles only if an alternate route is established. In light of the General Assembly's long-standing recognition of bicycling as a protected mode of transportation within Colorado and its specific decision to disallow a bicycle ban unless a suitable alternate path is provided for bicyclists, Black Hawk's bicycle prohibition ordinance fails the conflict test. It prohibits bicycling without providing a suitable alternate route where the state statute authorizes such a prohibition only when an alternate route is established.

[Duke87]

I'm complaining about people who don't move over at all (often because they're in groups and they don't understand the concept of single file)

I don't think you understand the concept of single file. If a two-abreast group of cyclists changes to single file, it takes twice as long to pass, which is twice as long that you're in the other lane. There may be a slight benefit when it's one or two cyclists that move to the right, since you don't spend as much time moving left, but when it's a whole group the total time is greater.

Who said anything about being in the other lane? The whole point of the bikes going single file in or near the shoulder as apposed to in a cluster in the middle of the travel lane is so that I can pass them without having to go all the way into the other lane. Yeah, it'll take longer to pass them all, but unlike in the alternate scenario oncoming traffic can still pass me while I'm passing the bikes, and thus I have one less potential collision to worry about.


In other news, it's nuts that a town banned bikes outright and I agree with striking that down. Especially since it's a developed area.

Also, for the record, I don't support a bike ban anywhere except on a freeway, nor do I support laws to make enforceable what I am arguing for. It should just be common sense.

[corco]

Go back and read Winkler's post upthread though- on your typical rural road, many if not most vehicles can't safely pass a cyclist without entering the other lane. If you're trying to pass bikes, even bikes hugging the right of the road to the best of their ability, without entering the other lane odds are very good that you're scaring the shit out of every cyclist you pass and nearly running them off the road. If you're passing bikes on a rural two lane road while oncoming traffic passes by, you're liable to cause an accident. At the very least, you'd get a reckless driving ticket if a cop saw you trying to pull those shenanigans.

For the record, I agree that bikes should be riding single file in most cases, but if you're passing bikes on most rural roads without crossing into the other lane, it's a matter of when, not if you end up causing an accident.

[NE2]

Who said anything about being in the other lane?

You did:

The whole point of the bikes going single file in or near the shoulder as apposed to in a cluster in the middle of the travel lane is so that I can pass them without having to go all the way into the other lane.

If the lane is super-wide (14-15+ feet) then it's safe to pass within the lane, and many states require cyclists to keep to the right edge. Less than that and you go into the other lane.

[Duke87]

Going two feet into the other lane =/= going all the way into the other lane. Oncoming traffic can still pass in the former scenario if the lane is standard width and there is a decent shoulder. And due to the lesser distance moved over it takes less time if we're dealing with one or two cyclists (as you said yourself).

[corco]

Two feet in the other lane though, you're now operating under the assumption that the oncoming car is fully aware of what's going on. If that oncoming car is not aware, and an accident is caused, it will be your fault for illegally overtaking and entering that other lane. Yeah, maybe that's shitty, but unless the oncoming car makes it clear he sees what's happening by moving over towards the shoulder before you enter the oncoming lane, you're exposing yourself to an awful lot of risk.

That might be a problem with existing driving laws, but there is no burden on the oncoming car to yield lane space to you to pass a bike. It's another situation where we hope that person will be polite, but there's no obligation to do so, or even for them to be aware of what you're trying to accomplish.

[Duke87]

Well, if I see the oncoming car move over to his right, I'm going to conclude he's making room for me. Otherwise I wouldn't attempt it. And yeah, this is courtesy, he isn't and shouldn't be required to.

Nonetheless, I get the impression that we have some very different mental images about what "I'm passing a bike on a rural road" looks like, probably arising from me being from the northeast while you're from out west. I am thinking of a mid-speed road here (posted at 40-45), not a high speed road (55+). On a high speed road passing three abreast is admittedly dangerous and probably reckless. Most "rural roads" around here don't fall into that category, but most out west do.

[english si]

WRT road position (and laws telling cyclists to keep as far right as practical):

From the syllabus for UK cycling ed (p18 of .pdf)

Trainees must position themselves where they can be seen and should not cycle in the gutter. Where there is little other traffic and/or there is plenty of room to be overtaken they may ride in the secondary position. Where the road is narrow and two-way traffic would make it hazardous for the trainee to be overtaken by a following vehicle they must be observed to ride in the primary position. If the trainee is riding at the speed of other traffic then they should do so in the primary position.

And from the glossary on page 48 (flipped left and right for obvious reasons)

Primary Position "The primary riding position is in the centre of the rightmost moving traffic lane for the direction in which you wish to travel"  (Franklin, Cyclecraft). Can also be referred to as "taking the lane" .

Secondary Position Between a half and one metre from the edge of the rightmost moving traffic lane for the direction in which you wish to travel. Not in the gutter.

And here's some reason why you shouldn't cycle in the gutter.

So when it comes to overtaking one cyclist in best case conditions would be this wide:
2ft - gap between cyclist and edge of lane (as sensible & courteous cyclist moves over to right edge of secondary position to allow overtaking - but only if safe to be overtaken - ie no junctions, corners, blind summits, etc coming up)
1ft - half width of cyclist (as the other half is in that 2ft)
3'6 - minimum distance between cyclist and car - Australia looking at fining drivers for leaving less than 1m gap. HC Rule 163 on overtaking says you need to give as much room as you would a car.
5'6 - width of car

So a 12ft lane is just wide enough, though really that is a minimum bound - certainly if you are going to overtake without slowing down much on a 40-45mph then the 14-15ft between right edge of road, and the right edge of your car that NE2 gave is on that minimum bound, and if you can, you ought to be going further over.

[corco]

It should also be noted that the average width of an American car is substantially greater than 5'6". To his credit, Duke's Ford Focus is actually 66.7" wide (excluding mirrors), so he's just a smidge wider than that width.

That's a small car though- the average car on the roads is a bit bigger than a Ford Focus. Your average pickup truck (which would be likely to be found on a rural road) is closer to 9' wide. A Chrysler minivan is about 6'5"' wide, a Ford Taurus is 5'10" wide, a Chevy Equinox and a Toyota Camry are 5'11" wide, and so forth. All those dimensions would exclude those pesky mirrors, so you can basically add another foot.

[english si]

It should also be noted that the average width of an American car is substantially greater than 5'6".

Oh yes, I took everything down to the minimum, just to show that you do need a wide lane to not leave it and safely overtake a bike.

[NE2]

sup
http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2013/11/19/a-law-like-no-other/

[Mergingtraffic]

http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-flower-street-1120-20131119,0,2052165.story

[Alps]

sup
http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2013/11/19/a-law-like-no-other/

that reads like an engineer wrote it, and it was just bodily thrust into law without being reviewed

[NE2]

that reads like an engineer wrote it, and it was just bodily thrust into law without being reviewed

It's actually been enlarged several times over the years. The most recent change: http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2013/01/03/florida-bicycle-lane-law-changes-again/

The confusing "too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side" bit appears in more than one state's law, so it may be part of the UVC.