And then the justification is always "well I saw a cyclist run a red light once, therefore all cyclists are shit"
Some weeks it can be really bad, several a day, some weeks it will be almost silent (but always at least one nutter).
The weather makes a big difference, for some reason drivers drive a lot worse in the rain and really hot weather, usually speeding / running reds and not checking mirrors more often than in overcast / typical UK weather.
But yeah when I am not on my daily commute you still get that kind of behaviour.
After a single day with over a dozen, I've stopped counting. Now I only note down the drivers that, when turning a corner or passing me, threw me off the bicycle and/or drove over the bicycle, damaging parts of it.
The list currently contains 2 events this month alone.
There's also a difference in where the risk is, as cyclists are mainly endangering themselves (also pedestrians, but crashing into a pedestrian is likely to hurt the cyclist), whereas motorists are mainly endangering others.
The best way of dealing with close-passing motorists is to run cameras (front and back) and let the police deal with the driver, but it depends on what area you're in as to whether the force will deal with it appropriately. Avon & Somerset is a good one in my experience.
Rule 129:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general-rules-t...
Some rules in the Highway Code are guidance only, but those marked with uppercase "MUST" or "MUST NOT" have legal force.
Most roads don't have solid centre lines.
I think that's a really interesting law since it actually makes an exception for slow bicycles. Looks like they're such a nuisance that cars are actually allowed to overtake them despite the solid line.
I have seen some crazy altercations between not cars and cyclist but public transport like trams and cyclist.
Once a cyclist managed to pull up to the front of a double bendy trollybus[1] I was in just to cut across the front of the bus forcing the driver to hard break. In another incident recently which ended up in the paper, a bus had to break so hard because of a cyclist that several people got injured.
[1] https://img.luzernerzeitung.ch/2020/9/30/9ae5b1ae-3593-4cc8-...
This guy doesn't run reds, I don't either. Apparently that's irrelevant because some cyclists do (and here's a bunch of anecdotes) so it's not a problem to harrass cyclists.
Right on!
Everyone breaks the traffic laws, it's just that for cars it's about speed (speed limits, illegal overtaking etc) while for cyclists it's about momentum (running red lights, stop signs etc). Both are dangerous behaviors that put others at risk
Motorists running red lights, speeding up for amber lights, exceeding the speed limits, tailgating, dangerously overtaking and so on, is all so common as to be unnoteworthy. This doesn't justify cyclists running reds, but it should put it into perspective.
That’s because it’s assumed that it’s OK to run yellow lights. The meme goes “yellow - step on it!” And in this way cars do run red lights, it’s just that they get through much faster. They know they’re supposed to slow down for the yellow. They have enough stopping distance when it turns yellow. And they still drive fast to skip the red light. I observe this behavior all the time driving my car. I slow and stop for yellow, but the other lane speeds through.
I don't think I've ever heard of a cyclist getting mad at another cyclist for stopping at a red light. The propensity to violate traffic laws seems to be higher among drivers than cyclists.
If you e.g. see pedestrians, brake and continue to roll slowly towards them in your car, you might think: "This is perfectly fine, I saw them!". But the question is: Did they see that you saw them? If not, then your slowly rolling car communicates; "Yo, I am gonna kill you!" to these pedestrians. This means in that situation the act of stopping is the clearest communication that you saw them.
Using blinkers, hand signs in the way they are intended (to communicate intent) makes also sense. On the highway check your damn mirrors before blinking unless your intent is to ram that car that could be there.
I promise you, no matter what cyclists are doing at red lights, cars are orders of magnitude more dangerous than cyclists.
Cyclists should obey the law, but people focusing on cyclist skipping red lights are missing the point: cars kill people, cyclists don't.
Moreover, if a cyclist causes an accident, they will almost certainly be seriously injured even if they hurt others too. Meanwhile, car drivers can expect to walk away from any low speed accident, even if they just plowed through a crowd of pedestrians.
Traffic signals only exist to accelerate car traffic. They slow down everyone else.
The most dangerous thing you can do as bicyclist is stopping, because the first ~10 meters after you’ve just started cycling again your balance won’t be perfect yet. And it happens that these few meters are almost always right in an intersection, in a conflict zone with cars.
Red lights are there to make car travel faster, there is ample evidence that running redlights on bicycles can be safer. But as I said it is not always clear how to act that will make stupid mistakes more frequent.
This is a subject that is hard to discuss even in the Netherlands, were they frequently remove red lights for cyclists but still fine them until it's gone.
Sure it's risky for me to ride drunk - but the risk is mostly on me. I've also had far more near misses sober in peak hour than drunk at 2am. The biggest risk at 2am is a drunk driver wilfully or accidentally runs a red light and t-bones me.
It isn’t such a drastic shift we are experiencing in Switzerland but we need to adjust the roads once created purely for cars and buses. This will automatically reduce friction.
But its a good topic to fill the newspapers…
Couple this with the fact that the infrastructure was clearly not built with their safety in mind and it's no real surprise that many cyclists choose not to use it in the same way as cars.
Personally I think there's a good argument to be made for why, in many cases, it would be ok for a cyclist to carefully make their way through a junction at a red light. Although the real answer would be to build infrastructure that removes the incentive to behave that way.
The fact is it's much safer for me to clear the intersection ahead of drivers rather than have them try to pass me at the intersection. If there are two lanes of cars banked up behind me impatient people will try and pass without changing to the far lane; getting too close to me in the process.
Some signals in my city have bike boxes and secondary lights for bikes which change a few seconds before the car signals to give riders a head start - this accomplishes the same thing and feels much safer.
For example - https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-31.9548303,115.8601648,3a,5...
Anecdatum: I can stand at the junction on the main road about 200m from here and, in peak time, see 5-10 cars (on each change) either deliberately jump the amber/red on one side or enter the junction in an unsafe manner on the other. Which means upwards of 100-200 cars per hour. For cyclists, it'll rarely be one per change; maybe 10 an hour.
That's one junction, albeit on a busy road.
I don’t really see how else to take your comment but as justification, though FWIW, studies show cars break more traffic laws way more times than bikes.
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/cycli...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists...
So long as cyclists and drivers share the same roads it will always exist, some drivers will just be better about it than others.
We've had 100 years to examine the effects of driving on people's brains and it's...deranging, clearly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwPSIb3kt_4
The phenomenon has been around as long as there have been automobiles.
And the speed of traffic is not determined by the speed of the cars, which most drivers seem to believe for some reason. In a city, the speed of traffic is entirely determined by the stop signals. There is a fixed time it will take you to get from A to B if you abide by the rules and don't run through every stop light. That fixed time depends somewhat on how many other cars are on the road, since you might wait for several signal changes at each light but the light changes have often been designed for throughput.
So even though you think you can go faster than the cyclist, you likely can't, at least averaged over your journey. They are probably actually going faster than you on average. Sure, you can drive faster for that short stretch before the next light, but what's the point? You are just burning more gas and if you pull some "skillful" weaving maneuvres around the cyclist, then you are endangering lives too.
Citation please.
> Every cyclist on the road means less cars on the road.
While that part is certainly more true than not, the implications of fewer cars but several bottlenecks added to the traffic system is far from certain and likely relies on so many other factors than just the number of bikes on the road.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1707222/bike-computer-study-prov...
I am not a traffic engineer but I think if you know a few simple numbers like average travel distance, average car size, bike size, etc. you can see how it will be difficult to design any system where cars will beat bicycles. The only conceivable way for this to work is to space everything 20 miles apart with 8 lane highways connecting them and even then you still have last mile problems in such a system that necessarily slows things down. Even the freeways themselves can be bumper to bumper at rush hour, just look at the Katy Freeway in Houston.
Basically, there are already bottlenecks in car traffic systems and there is no way to avoid them because of induced demand. Adding cycling infrastructure will not hurt drivers but would help get more people on bikes.
Where I am there's often tractors on the road. A lot harder to overtake, and I still manage to refrain from getting angry at them either!
People need to just chill the fuck out.
Which is the most dangerous place to be of all. Cyclists must avoid this zone except for near-zero speeds.
I usually tell new cyclists to assume that you are never seen unless you are right in front of a car. Assume all cars have no mirrors, side windows and all doors can be opened at any time. In a car, the mentality is usually "if I have the right of way I'll do it", on a bike it's a death wish.
2. In the city they're even less of an issue, because the speed limit is 50 km/h and they're doing what, 20-40km/h? It's not that big a deal especially if you factor in intersections, roundabouts, etc.
3. They're still narrower than farm tractors. Or herds of cattle. It's just not that big a deal.
But in traffic and the laws lane usage is binary. There is no such thing as half lanes, you cannot use the second lane "a little". You either need it, or you don't.
So overtaking a bicycle, a motorbike, a pedestrian on the road or a tractor, etc. it is all the same.
What I'm trying to say is, where I live people forget that all the time, and then they think they can "squeeze by", endangering cyclists, motorcyclists and most of all the opposing traffic. I see this multiple times a week in the summer.
See https://www.northants.police.uk/police-forces/northamptonshi...
Also, cyclists have to keep roughly the same distance from parked cars (“reasonable distance”, OLG Düsseldorf ruled 2018 that this means 1.5 meters from parked cars or 80 cm from a curb if there are no cars).
With those two rules combined, in most city streets bicyclists require a full lane.
It's still a lot easier than passing a tractor.
In italy they go side by side in groups of 2 or 3… (which is forbidden but who cares).
When walking, cyclists have absolutely no regard for my physical safety. When I lived in a city with a lot of cyclists I ended up developing some kind of fear that made me look around all the time because of how many cyclists had almost killed me when I was peacefully walking along the pavement.
Oh god how I hate cyclists.
In reality the most likely thing to happen to you is that you maybe get so nasty scratches and dirty clothing.
For several days pedestarians complained that cyclists drive like crazy and it's "when" not "if" some cyclist will hit someone. That unfortunately proved to be accurate.
https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/ulice/warszawa-rowerzysta-potra... [PL]
[1] https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/11/23/road-deaths-in-poland...
I would guess that the stats would be radically different, if we took only pedestrians on sidewalks, as was the case above.
> a cyclist ran over a child (ER took the child to hospital) on a busy promenade on the bank of the river.
Promenades happen to be dedicated to pedestrians. So pedestrian was hit in a place, where he was supposed to be safe.
And then...
> Meanwhile there's over 2000 deadly car accidents a year in Poland, 20% of which are pedestrians[1], meaning there's more than one pedestrian killed by a car every day.
These accidents probably didn't happen on promenades, pavements, sidewalks, footpaths or other places dedicated to pedestrians.
So back to my point: comparing apples with apples. This comparison wasn't it.
And yet people seem to promptly forget about it as soon as they get onto their killing machines. Must be something in the wheels or saddles causing them a selective amnesia.
Electric scooters on crosswalks are surely a plague. Teens on them tend to ride out of the bushes at their maximum speed and cross roads without ever slowing down, making it quite hard for drivers to anticipate. Yes, you have right of way, dolt, but so has a car that just turned right, after making sure it's clear to go. There is no way to tell that a crazy kid is going to jump out in the next 300ms.
This is still a systemic issue due to poor urban design/planning. The kid was injured because the city didn't properly separate two different modes of transit. Even if it was "temporary"
We could live in a world where treat bike lanes with the respect we treat car lanes and give them proper detours and this wouldn't be an issue.
That’s what happened to me. Only reason I didn’t get trampled was because I had a funny feeling and decided to slow down as I approached the intersection (buildings obscured my view of possible traffic).
They had zero sense of self preservation, let alone any regard for anyone else.
I’ve had a similar experience walking, I was in the middle of a crosswalk on a four lane road by the time a dozen teenagers blew through their red light, popping wheelies on gold plated BMXs, cars screeching in the middle of the intersection to avoid hitting them. I almost yelled at the first one that went by me thinking they were the only one, but was very glad I didn’t when all the others passed around me. One of the wildest things I’ve seen in a city.
Outside of some developing countries I've never felt threatened by cars, but I've been just less than a second away from death or permanent disability because of bicycles in Helsinki, Berlin, Tel Aviv etc.
One seriously distinct American thing is to claim deadly dangers in extraordinary safe situations and places.
Yes. They are both less frequent and the consequences are less grave. Even among people who survive them, the injuries are less serious then injuries of car accidents.
Also, more specifically, Berlin and Helsinki are not unsafe with their use of bicycles. There is no army of permanently disabled people due to use of either in those cities. Whatever is the root of hate toward cyclists, the actual safety is not it. For that matter, people who use bikes for transport rarely use super expensive bikes. That part of the comment does not work either.
First result [0] says there were zero pedestrian or cyclist fatalities in 2019, with ping-term trend being increasing safety.
Another result [1] on how it was achieved: “cut speed limits, changed street design, removed space for cars and generally made life harder for motorists”.
Huh… sounds like cars are doing the killing…
[0]: https://news.cision.com/city-of-helsinki/r/zero-pedestrian-a...
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-a...
What less than a second away means to you?
I think there is a bias based on perception. When people see a cyclists going in their direction they assume said cyclist will ran into them on purpose while a bicycle comes into a complete stop in just a handful of meters and can avoid objects easily. I am not condoning riding fast and recklessly in path shared to pedestrian and cyclists and I tend to lower my speed at barely more than running pace but a lot of that comes from perception.
One other example, I have been riding MTB for years in swiss Alps, in trails shared by hikers and mountain bike. If I am in a descent I tend to go quite fast when visibility is good and I can see what is at the exit of a corner. When there is no visibility I will reduce my speed dramatically to be able to stop for any hiker, cattle or whatever that could be in the way. The thing is braking hard on a mountain bike with aggressive tires on dirt/rocks is quite a noisy affair and involve a bit of sliding, which is fair and nice. Hikers on the other side of the corner would often end up being afraid by the sound and shouting insults at me like I was a criminal while I had preventively braked to a safe speed in order for anyone to be safe. Perception bias. In later years I started braking much earlier and in a longer distance has to do less noise, removing fun just so that people are less afraid. It didn't change a thing regarding their safety. Sad.
(Obviously there are many courteous cyclists too, just as there are many courteous drivers and pedestrians, I'm just talking about this particular group.)
This is not to mention on some streets the bike lane just randomly ends and you find yourself on a sidewalk with no separate lane and you have to choose whether to stay on the sidewalk and risk hitting a pedestrian, or dangerously swerve into the street and risk getting hit by a car.
If they just built proper separated bike lanes protected from car traffic, and clearly separated from pedestrians this simply wouldn't be an issue at all. Copenhagen has it right where the bike lanes are painted bright blue and are on a physically raised level from both the street and sidewalk, in addition to prioritizing bikes and pedestrians at many intersections without stoplights. It's a joy to cycle around Copenhagen because of this.
Being born and raised in the Netherlands, this was a bit of a nasty surprise when I moved here. I really think you can cut down car use significantly by improving the infrastructure. The distances and landscape lend themselves well to biking, but the roads do not.
That being said, when I was in driving school way later than most people who got their driver's license, I suddenly noticed a few things as a cyclist: People in cars don't see anything from inside in comparison. So some things cyclists do end up endangering them needlessly because they may lack awareness about the problems drivers may have reacting to that behavior. This probably cuts both ways and we'd all be safer if there are more cyclists on the streets so drivers get accustomed to looking out for them and there are perhaps fewer instances where anyone, cyclist or driver, would be compelled to resort to something dangerous just out of inconvenience. But at least for me I basically changed my cycling behavior to act like a car. And when in a car I at least know how cyclists feel in certain situations and can avoid them. Leaving space, not overtaking where you can't, anticipating somewhat erratic behavior (cyclists can't always give hand signals when turning, for example). And honestly, it's not a big deal or an inconvenience. But then again, it's also how to behave on the road in general according to the laws (first paragraph of the German highway code is literally to exhibit caution looking out for each other, and that goes for everyone in theory).
It's just a lot more energy expensive to stop and start again for a bike, while it is essentially free for a pedestrian.
As a pedestrian I always try to avoid making bikes stop unnecessarily, and most people seem to do the same here, even if pedestrians technically have priority. Most people here are also bikers at times, so I suppose they understand this better than pedestrians in places where bikes are seen as something special/annoying/for other people.
Should cars then have priority over people in a crosswalk?
Not for the driver. This isn't an environmental argument. This is an argument that a pedestrian just has to stand for a moment, a driver just has to slightly move their feet, and a bicyclist has to do a bunch of physically strenuous shit to stop.
edit: I'm not a bicyclist.
There are two different reasons to consider for pedestrians having priority over cars, unlike over bikes.
First, as the sibling comment says, there is no energy personally spent by the driver to stop and start their car. It's effortless, while in the case of a bike, the energy is the biker's own.
The other reason is that it is generally more difficult to cross a stream of cars that don't stop compared to crossing a stream of bikes that don't stop. Cars drive faster and cannot really deviate from their path (more than a few tens of centimeters) while bikes drive slower and can more easily move while staying in their lane to make way for a pedestrian without stopping.
Of course, reading comments here (and generally, comments on American websites) you would think that bikers in general are found in the form of a swarm of dangerous, malevolent savages that are totally unpredictable at best. Maybe that's the case in the US (that was definitely not the case in Québec when I was living there but that's my only point of reference in North America) but it was not the case in any of the cities of Europe and Asia where I've lived.
Bikers are just more averse to stopping because they are more physically affected by it than users of other forms of transportation, and not because they are a despicable subspecies of humans with a particular propensity towards bothering others.
Funny, in a way. An old ... acquaintance used a corollary of this back in the 90's. Because he drove a truck, stopping it and then getting it moving again took considerable amount of energy. Much more than what a pedestrian would require.
As such, he considered himself having the drive of way over pedestrians and the heavier the vehicle he was driving, the better the reason he had to run the lights. And if necessary, over pedestrians.
Yes, he was an arse.
The argument sounds ridiculous when framed from a drivers point of view. And it's the same from the cyclists. Either you want traffic laws to be obeyed or you don't. Offering up that "really sucks" isn't a valid reason to ignore the laws.
In fact, no, it isn't binary. Driving laws are written in blood. When a driver speeds or runs a red light they massively increase the chance of severe injury, death, or catastrophic property damage, for both themselves and everybody around them.
This is just simply not the case for all other modes of travel. So, no, I don't want the laws to be either "enforced or not." I care way more about enforcing laws on the drivers of multi-ton machines traveling at high rates of speed than I do the guy on a bicycle or the pedestrian.
This frustrates drivers, who demand that everybody be treated the same. But it's absurd to treat all modes of travel the same, which is why a ground crew isn't required for you to back out of your driveway, even though it is for commercial jets.
Depends on where you live, I guess?
I have no issue if cyclists are riding on reserved lanes, but I DO have an issue if 1) they are blocking other vehicles for 20+ seconds, 2) suddenly come onto road from sidewalk, 3) anything else that adds mental burden to other people
That said, I hope ALL roads have cyclist lanes so that I can enjoy more cycling.
Same goes for bicycles, they've got places to be. It's a means of transportation just like a car. If there is no bike lane, that's though luck for the cyclist (as it's a lot less comfortable) and for the motorists behind them, and a good reason for cyclists and motorists alike to argue for more bike lanes. Why should they alone bear the cost of shitty infrastructure (in time lost stopping by the side of the road every time a car is stuck behind them for +20s)?
When cycling, under such circumstances, I usually stay between two parked cars until the traffic is better (that is usually after a switch of traffic light to red). But again I try to stay in reserved lanes, much safer.
- There is a decent number of bicycle lanes in Trondheim. Some people complain about obstacles you have to deal with, but in general it is easier to navigate the city on a bicycle than in a car or on a motorcycle. Bicyclists have a lot less to complain about than car or motorcycle drivers if we're going to be fair.
- Most drivers tend to treat me with respect when I'm on a bicycle. I can't even remember the last time I got into conflict with a car. I live at the end of an uphill section with sharp turns, which means I'll be testing car drivers' patience every single day. And yet they tend to drive patiently behind me until they can see that it is clear (or I wave them past if I can see far enough around the next corner).
- I try to minimize interaction with pedestrians and cars when picking routes. I've ridden a bike in 3 cities and found that you can almost always find low conflict routes at acceptable cost in terms of time/distance. It puzzles me that a lot of my peers lack the ability or willingness to put some thought and consideration into their riding.
(My default route to work separates me from cars 80% or so of the route, has perhaps 4-5 choke points where I have to cooperate with pedestrians and takes 22-23 minutes. I mostly choose roads parallel to roads with higher traffic. A more direct route saves me perhaps 2-3 minutes, but in my estimation, isn't worth the extra exposure to cars and pedestrians).
- Pedestrians wandering into bike lanes tend to represent a bigger danger than cars. Many pedestrians are much less alert than drivers and less predictable. Especially those with their nose in their smart phones.
- A big challenge in cities seems to be buses. I don't think this is out of ill will, but because they have a job that is orders of magnitude harder than driving a regular car. A bit of respect for their job goes a long way towards reducing conflict. Avoiding areas where buses need to navigate stressful traffic is usually the best approach.
- In Norway most bicycle riders tend to behave OK. But there is a small minority that is aggressively entitled. These people are essentially assholes, but feel they have a right to be assholes because they ride bicycles and everyone else is always at fault. They are big on their rights. Usually male, a bit equipment-obsessed and usually between 35 and 50. I think of these as the "one percenters of bicycles".
At least here in Norway, it is mostly down to attitude and willingness to cooperate regardless of mode of transportation. There are asshole drivers, but I get the impression that they are more of a problem in Oslo than in Trondheim where I live. Attitudes may be far more aggressive in the US and far less in the Netherlands or Denmark.
I think, especially in cities, you just have the problem of bicycles not fitting in either of the two historically present transport modes. They are too slow for the street and waaaaay to fast for the pedestrian side.
Bike lanes historically do not deliver as they increase traffic pattern complexity significantly for all three participants.
I have seen some very ambitious plans to make city Centers free of anything that can go faster than 25kph and I root for such plans but they are all very naive usually.
Still, happy to see the world move in such a direction. Until then I think we will have to live with the fact that there are some legitimate reasons to hate on the bicycle.
PS: before you all get worked up for what a bicycle hating subhuman I must be. I own a mountain bike, I happily use it in forests and mountainous regions and get huge amounts of recreational value out of it.
The biggest problems I've had have actually been in places where this isn't the case: slow-moving inner city traffic here you can just keep up with cars.
In some traffic situations this is certainly a problem, but I think it's just part of the overall problem.
Uh, what? Reaching 15km/h is not unheard of for running either, so why would that be waaaaay too fast on a bike in mainly pedestrian areas? Sure, the bike should slow down to lower speeds than their norm to ensure safety for all people involved in traffic, but isn't that no different from how cars shouldn't go 100km/h+ in city centers?
The problem with bikes is that most don't have a speedo so they have no clue how fast they are travelling.
The point I was making is that it is safe to use a bike in foot traffic areas if you slow down to match the expected speeds of your surrounding traffic; such as using a bike in the historical city center of e.g. Amersfoort or Utrecht, where there is usually a lot of foot traffic and little car traffic, and no separate bike lanes.
I was talking about a pedestrian road, considering the 'historical' setting of the GP post.
No, I do understand that there is (some) more danger to a bike. But a bike also provides an elevated viewpoint to the cyclist, allowing for a better overview of the traffic situation, allowing the cyclist to better participate in traffic.
> more difficult to safely maneuver around short of standing the side and stopping to let them pass.
Most of the time roads are wider than the turning radius of a bike, especially at low speeds (approx 1.5m). Why would you need to stand aside to let someone pass if you have such wide roads?
This is shown directly by city planners. When construction closes down bike lines or walkways, which ever remains get temporarily converted to be both bike and walkway. Since that doesn't carry any increase in risk, it is safe to do so.
Similar, parents with strollers often use bike lanes. During winter when the road conditions is at its worst you often see strollers on bike lines. No one acts as if this puts the baby at mortal danger. Statistics also support this since bikes crashing into a stroller is unheard of.
However lanes that share bikes and pedestrians make people feel unease. The low speed and short breaking distance of bikes allow them to avoid causing accidents, but it doesn't remove the fear completely. Thus Swedish city planners don't generally combine pedestrians and bikes unless there is a good reason, like construction.
EDIT: Yield here is a misnomer, what I mean to convey is that slower moving traffic by law is supposed to pass faster moving traffic if it's possible to do so safely, and this is a feat that I rarely see take place, be it with cyclists or drivers.
WTF is wrong with you in America?
When a bike goes on the pavement it's the bike that has to yield. When a pedestrian or a bike goes on a road - it's the cars that have to yield (usually, there's exceptions).
When a pedestrian crosses a street - cars and bikes have to stop for example. When a bike and a car meet on an intersection of equal roads with no lights or signs - whoever is on the left has to yield, no matter what their speed is. When signs or lights show who has to yield - it also doesn't matter if you drive a car/bike or walk.
I can't think of a single instance where the law says you should yield just because you're slower.
And if law doesn't say who should yield - it's customary to let the slower/more vulnerable to go first.
Yes, at intersections, as a driver, I will let bicycles and pedestrians cross first if there's a stop sign or the traffic is moving slowly. However, when I'm driving my Prius on the highway and I don't feel like doing 15 MPH over the speed limit, I will move over and let the soccer mom pass. 30 minutes later when on a mountain road, I expect the soccer mom and the cycling enthusiasts to do the same.
I have a feeling that you'll end up killing someone on one of these mountain roads with that attitude.
You wait behind them until you're on a clear stretch of straight road, and then overtake. If you don't have a clear stretch of road, you continue to wait behind them. Anything else, and you're putting either the cyclist in danger, or yourself and the oncoming traffic in danger.
I'm not saying that I'll be driving at inappropriate speeds or trying to tail-gate other cars or god-forbid cyclists on mountain roads. I prefer to keep my distance, especially around cyclists. All I'm saying is that it'd be nice if the slower traffic in front would actively let the faster traffic pass, using the turnouts or whatever they're called to stop and let others pass.
There's no if, and you're not in a position to "let" them do anything. Doesn't matter how fast they go. If they have the right of way - they do. If they don't - they don't. Speed doesn't matter and it's not your decision.
> I am specifically referring to a situation where there's traffic going one way on a road and slower vehicles are impeding on traffic behind them
There's law about that, and you won't like it :) If a bike is driving on a road and you're behind it and forced to slow down because of that - you can overtake the bike only if you have at least 1 meter of safety margin. If the road is too narrow to do that or there's a continuous line or overtaking ban sign - you are required by law to slow down and drive behind the bike waiting for a safer place to overtake that bike.
There's no law forcing the bike to "let you overtake it" - the only relevant law AFAIK is that the bike has to drive near the right side (except for intersections where they turn left). But so do anybody else, including cars - it has nothing to do with speed.
> soccer mom
No idea what that is and how it matters.
> cycling enthusiasts
Do you call people "walking enthusiasts" and car drivers "car enthusiast"? This whole approach to cyclists as if they were somehow "less serious" road users than car drivers is toxic.
As for the cycling enthusiast remark, if you're cycling on mountain roads for the purpose of recreation, I think it's fair to say that you'd be interested in cycling more than most other people. I might be very wrong. I don't have anything against cyclists, I am one myself. And yes, I will call people hill-walking enthusiasts if they enjoy hill walking. I will also call some people driving enthusiasts, if they enjoy the act of driving. These are distinct groups of people for whom these labels seem justified. Don't take this the wrong way but it might be you who's assigning some moral value to the use of these labels, my intention was to use them in a more matter-of-fact kind of a way.
> There's no law forcing the bike to "let you overtake it" - the only relevant law AFAIK is that the bike has to drive near the right side (except for intersections where they turn left). But so do anybody else, including cars - it has nothing to do with speed.
Yes there is. In the UK, as per the latest changes to the highway code, slower traffic should let faster traffic pass, when possible to do so in a safe manner. I was certain it was the same in California, but I cannot find any source claiming this just now - however, there are plenty of signs saying that slower traffic should use turnouts to let others pass.
> There's law about that, and you won't like it :) If a bike is driving on a road and you're behind it and forced to slow down because of that - you can overtake the bike only if you have at least 1 meter of safety margin. If the road is too narrow to do that or there's a continuous line or overtaking ban sign - you are required by law to slow down and drive behind the bike waiting for a safer place to overtake that bike.
I take no issue with such a law - if it's not safe to pass, then there's nothing one can do. I think it's pretty obvious that safety always comes first. However, given a situation where there's 5 or more cars behind me when I'm cycling, I'll be aware of this and I will stop whenever possible to let them pass if they are able to go faster than I am on my bike. This is not difficult to do, and I'd much prefer the 2 tonnes of metal that's powered by paleolithic compost and not rarely operated by someone looking at their phone were in front of me rather than behind me.
I haven't been able to find this change sorry, where did you see it? It's not mentioned in any of the update articles I've been able to find[0]. The pre-existing rule 169 is the closest match and only suggests that road users do not create long queues of traffic. This doesn't mean that slower road users are required to pull over for any faster vehicle, only that they should try to if a longer queue begins to form behind them.
Older articles[1] indicate that 169 doesn't apply to cyclists at all but I imagine this is an overgeneralisation of the rule that allows cyclists to take a lane position that prevents cars from overtaking when it is unsafe to do so.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-highway-code-8-change...
[1] https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/law-slow-m...
In any case - I don't think the law you refer to means what you think it means. For example if you're driving a farming equipment (or a bike) at the top comfortable speed - you don't have to speed up or stop on a nearest parking to "let people pass". You just continue driving as normal, close to the right side of the road. What's forbidden is slowing down on purpose to block the traffic, which is a whole different thing (usually done as a form of a political protest). At least that's how it works in Poland and I suspect in the rest of EU.
"6. Drivers must not drive at such a low speed that they constitute an obstruction or danger to the normal flow of traffic." [machine translated]
https://www.aci.it/i-servizi/normative/codice-della-strada/t...
On every road where minimum speed is introduced bikes are banned anyway. At least in my country. It's just motorways and expressways. Every other road does not have minimum speed and bikes can go as slow as they wish. Anything else would be discriminatory towards less fit people.
Bikes have been historically present for a generation or two longer than cars. https://www.vox.com/2015/3/19/8253035/roads-cyclists-cars-hi...
Replace that bicycles with cars and the argument still holds up. "historically" here is really an argumentum ad antiquitatem. Both cars and bicycles are fairly modern inventions which both appeared around the same time.
In fact, city streets were mostly dominated by pedestrians, horses and carriages up to the late 19th / early 20th century. Moreover, there was a backlash against early cars as well. The more interesting question is this: how did cars really ended up overtaking streets in cities and towns? Why did infrastructure / urban planning ended up favoring car use in the public space?
> I have seen some very ambitious plans to make city Centers free of anything that can go faster than 25kph and I root for such plans but they are all very naive usually
Why are they naive? I live in a historic city center. Streets used to be cramped with cars, it smelled horribly with exhaust gasses, soot covered historic buildings, parking space is extremely limited and small sidewalks were crowded forcing you to teeter into traffic.
Over the past decades, that all changed as car use was gradually disincentivized and in some areas downright banned. All I can say is that it has been a massive improvement. The city is far more appealing then it used to be... and these days I know few people contesting that it's "unfeasible" or "unpractical".
Would it work everywhere? No, not really. Let's be realistic. But let's not venture into the other extreme dismissing wholesale as a naive idea either.
Where do you live? Cause I'm walking A LOT (over 9 km per day on average for the last 2 years - yes I'm recording stats, I'm a nerd) and I bike a little (but much less - about 3 km per day in that period) and I've never had a guy on a bicycle threaten me when I'm walking or biking.
Pedestrians in the cities are on the pavements. You cannot really bike over 15 km/h on a pavement. And depending on the kind of the pavement 10 km/h might be more realistic. You'll shake and your wrists will hurt if you do more than that. And it's hard to maintain over 15 km/h for long if you're not very fit. I know I can't, and I'm more fit than the average cyclist. Going 15 km/h on a pavement you pose no threat to anybody.
Outside of the cities cyclists and pedestrians do meet on the roads - but pedestrians walk the other side of the road than cyclists. And the average cyclist in countryside is a grandma going back from church/cemetary/grocery shop. Really not a threat either.
The only cyclists that might theoretically put you in danger are the hardcore sport kind, but they are very rare and they just go on the streets with cars.
Bikes are way too fast for the roads.
Bicycles were invented first, cars came later. It's the cars that don't fit. They're too big and too dangerous.
Next time you go outside, take a look around you and count all the gizmos and contrivances that litter the streets, all of which are for cars or because of cars or to protect from cars. Traffic lights, painted crossings, bollards, metal protective barriers, pedestrian islands, bike lanes, parking spaces, speed cameras, on and on it goes.
We only need all this ugly junk because of cars. We've trained ourselves not to see it, like a hoarder who doesn't properly see his piles of clutter.
When it's just pedestrians, bikes, and maybe a tram or two, it's amazing how tidy and calm a street can be.
You mean on foot or by horse?
It would help if most of the present-day bicycle owners wouldn't be solid middle-class people who, when asking for a banning of cars, don't really know, or don't want to know, how crucial owning a car is for a person who isn't that well-off.
This approach is far better for those who aren't "well-off". Cars are very expensive! If we can free people from that economic burden and reduce the environmental impact and improve the availability of alternate means of transit, then the call to eliminate cars is extremely well justified. An argument which, again, is backed up by a wealth of robust scientific research covering all aspects of the problem, including economic.
Cyclists are very aware of how car-centric the infrastructure of their country is and the vast majority of them are arguing for resident focused planning, along with cycling infrastructure that allows people who aren't well-off to do away with the expense that is owning a car.
You can't purposely design everything around owning a car and then use "poor people need to own a car" as an excuse against any kind of mass transit planning.
I've watches a few videos of people biking, on bike lanes, in New York, and those lanes are placed by a mad man. Sometimes they are even on the wrong side of the road.
Go to the Netherlands, go to Denmark, Copenhagen especially and see how to mix traffic types. It's not perfect, but it's light years ahead of what some other countries are attempting.
Depending on the situation, you can indeed move to a lane that turns left. But it requires cooperation from drivers. So in places where drivers are either hostile to bikes or likely to overlook bikes, it is not a safe way to turn.
Smaller roads, sure, if there's no traffic, you just look over your left shoulder and make the turn if it's all clear.
Did they make a mistake? Is this not consistent with what motorists are being taught to expect? Are motorists commonly not being taught what to expect, and getting confused about this?
For California, I don't know. For western European: Oh my god YES! By all mean signal which way you're going to turn, but in intersection, especially those with multiple lanes, you never make a left turn. Drivers will not expect you in the middle of the intersection.
E: Source: https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/pd/de/index/stadtpolizei_zueric...
You are over generalising. I don't know where you are but where I am in western europe cyclist absolutely cross intersections like a vehicle.
The trick is to take control of the lane. If you are sticking to the side cars won't see you. If you take up space in front of them they will see you and include you in their calculations.
And before you or someone else jumps here to spread some fud: No i am not advocating jumping in front of cars with zero warning. Or whatever silly idea you have based on what I just wrote. I see this done all the time, and I do it fairly regularly.
You have to be seen. You have to be predictable. You have to know where you are heading.
And the same thing on roundabouts, if you want to safely ride a roundabout you absolutely have to take the entire lane and not allow cars to overtake you. Otherwise cars exiting the roundabout will run over you.
But just as you don’t signal and start your left turn in your car at the last moment, so you don’t with a bike. Unfortunately, we have bikers who go to a left turn from the rightmost position, don’t signal or signal when it’s useless. The rule for drivers is to expect and anticipate stupid people and not kill them.
For the record, I personally prefer crossing twice as well. But I'll disagree with "western Europe".
There are always some idiot drivers who think that bikes have no right to be on the road, and who'll pass dangerously close to you, sound their horn as they're passing a few inches away from you (and the distraction could easily make you swerve into them), complain if you take the middle of the lane, but open their doors in front of you if you stay on the edge, etc. On the whole though, drivers in the UK tend to be careful when cyclists are around, and I've never had any aggression from someone when I've been in the second or third lane to make a right turn.
As a cyclist, I also find it incredibly irritating when another cyclist runs a red light, not only because it reflects badly on the other cyclists, but also they'll probably be in my way a minute later, when I need to pull out further in the road to overtake them, as it's almost always the slowest cyclists who won't stop for a red light.
No. When there are no bike lanes, the safest place to be is at least one bicycle width away from the far right of the road.
Some drivers will overtake you in tight situations no matter what. If you stand in the far right, you have no leeway and will get stuck between death and hitting the curbside. Take a safety buffer to retreat to when the occasional mad driver comes for your life.
You go straight and stop at the end of the intersection. Wait for lights to change and cross again.
I would honk if someone took a left turn in front of my car on their bicycle in Copenhagen.
Bicycles are supposed to be on the road, pedestrians are not.
The point is, that they aren't suppose to be in the middle of road.
You see, there is a system. Starting from the right: pedestrians, bikes and lastly cars. We never deviate from that system, that way everyone always know where everything is. Sometimes there's a bike lane, but that still goes between the pedestrians and the cars.
Also, if everything else fail, and this is what kids in Denmark is taught. If you're ever in doubt if the drivers have seen you, assume they haven't and stay away from the cars. You're on a bike, it's a great means of transportation and it's really safe (at least here), but if you're hit by a car, it's going to hurt you more than the car, so stay away from them.
I think it's weird that people in countries that have the most cyclist are also the people who least of all believe that bikes have some weird right of way or than bikes should just be in the middle of heavy traffic.
In other countries, bike infrastructure is sparse, poorly designed, and frequently dangerous. Bicyclists must drive defensively to stay alive. Sometimes this means taking the full lane because staying to the side puts you in danger of dooring or makes you vulnerable to aggressive drivers who will squeeze by without adequate space.
In many other countries, bicycles turning left are expected to move to the middle of the leftmost lane and make the turn exactly as a car would. It's hardly surprising that those countries don't have so many people cycling as Denmark or the Netherlands.
Mainly door zones of parked cars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dooring
That's the main reason I was taught to take a full lane with my bike, and the main reason I do. (Apart from things I perceive as safety issues -- mainly dooring! -- I always try to make sure motorists can pass me when they want to.)
Still, in places with no bike lanes, I sort of see your point, but who in their right mind opens a door straight into traffic. If it's a bike it's going to unpleasant for the rider, if it's a car, your car door comes off. I think it's less of a problem here in Denmark, partly do to placement of the bike lanes, but also because you don't park your car on the side of major roads and because drivers a more expecting of bikes perhaps. I mean dooring happens, but very rarely.
> who in their right mind opens a door straight into traffic. If it's a bike it's going to unpleasant for the rider, if it's a car, your car door comes off [...] I mean dooring happens, but very rarely.
Here in the U.S., I believe it's the most common cause of cyclist injuries in some cities (!). Opening doors into traffic without looking is not that unusual, and there's a lot of discussion about how to change that habit.
Edit: the sibling comment points out that the habit of looking before opening doors may be different for drivers versus passengers. Anecdotally, I think some of the worst offenders are taxi and rideshare passengers (in the back seat).
No, it's on the right (i.e. correct) side of the car - drivers are trained to look into the side mirror before opening the door, passengers not (and even if they were, they can't use the mirror on their side).
It's pretty nice as a cyclist, in the minority of cases where there was enough space to do it this way. I suspect it may have required eliminating an entire traffic lane in some places!
A taxi driver will often remind you at the end of the journey, if you're obviously foreign.
(And you have forgotten passengers in the back seats.)
And imho bikes should be allowed to drive right in the middle so that a car can't possibly overtake. It could be tractor or another slow vehicle and people would find it annoying but deal with it.
I do the same when I cycle. And then, when there is an opportunity or I see that I'm starting to block multiple cars and the road is continuing for too long, I'll stop to allow them to take over.
In the same way, when there is someone walking on the dedicated bicycle lane that is next to the pedestrian walk, I'm not annoyed but slow down and carefully overtake them if possible or just cycle behind slowly until there is a safe opportunity.
I used to ride as far to the right as possible on roads without bike lanes, but then I got hit by a driver trying to squeeze past me without changing lanes.