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Comment by pnathan | Hacker News Reader

Well, the problem for me is this: the cyclist is in my lane. I have to swerve dangerously into the other lane to avoid hitting them. I do not want to hit them.

Either I slow down to 15 mph or I commit dangerous driving. Neither option is really good. If there is a bike lane and they are using it, yay. I am happy. If there is a bike lane and they aren't using it (instead being in my lane), I am pretty torqued.

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I think a lot of the car rage at bicyclists has to do with this unfounded sense of entitlement. I suggest you read up on bicycle laws.

http://bicycledriving.org/public-awareness/motorists-should-...

(tl;dr: It ain't your lane)

There are a ton of reasons for not being in bike lanes including snow, pot holes, glass, other debris, and the very real potential of getting doored.

Well, if it's a 50 mph zone and I'm a car going 15, that's illegal.

Don't see why that isn't true for bikes.

That's not actually true, unless you're on a controlled access highway. In which case there will usually be signs mentioning that non-motorized vehicles are not allowed on that road posted at all the entry points.

It's not illegal to do 15 specifically, but if you doing it just to be annoying, you're very likely to get cited for obstruction of traffic.

How about horses? Tractors? Get real. Bikes can't do much over 15, most cyclists anyway. That's why they can go slower: they have to.

My point isn't that I'm looking for an excuse. Obviously a bike can't do 50.

But it really disrupts traffic when someone is trotting along at 15. Be that a horse, dogcart, or tractor. In a car-centric infrastructure, it's a disruption. Obviously the USA infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is car-centric and thus non-cars will be disruptive. That's my point.

Nobody has to be in such a hurry as to warrant legislating someone elses rights out of existance to save 30 seconds. That's MY point.

It all looks car-centric when you're driving a car. In rural areas, if you've even been in one for even a short amount of time, you learn that the roads are almost exclusively there for the commercial traffic. Iowa has a grid on a 1-mile spacing of gravel roads - not so you can race to grandma's house in your car, but so all arable land can be serviced by tractor and truck.

I'm not advocating anything (I don't see a reasonable solution proposed to date), but I would like you to understand the problem.

Let's say you're traveling 10 miles in either bike (15 mph, very fast cyclist) or car (55 mph). It will take roughly this many minutes to travel:

    (* 60 (/ 10 15.0))
    40.0

    (* 60 (/ 10 55.0))
    10.90909090909091

The difference is half an hour, just going 10 miles. So really think a bit: if you're stuck behind $slow_traveller for 10 miles (curvy roads, hilly roads, whatever. Google for Palouse in WA if you want an idea of my local road system), you've just lost 30 minutes of your time. Fiddle the math how you like; it adds up to a lot more than 30 seconds. 30 seconds of hassle is what I get in town: not much.

Note that I live in a rural area and bike around as much as I can. So I swing both ways here, and I still say that bikes disrupt road infrastructure which isn't designed to handle them.

I don't think posting a sign every five feet saying "bicycles are allowed to be in this lane too" would make anyone less mad about having a slow bike in front of them.

No one suggested this. I think people would be less mad about the situation if they thought about it from the bicyclist's perspective.

The problem for the cyclist is that s/he's often in an equal bind--ride in the bike lane next to a string of parked cars, and you never know which of those cars is going to open their door at the exact wrong time. I have friends who have ended up in the emergency room with broken collarbones after getting 'doored.' Avoid the bike lane and ride in traffic, and you never know which sociopath behind the wheel is going to clip you.

Dooring is a huge fear of mine as a cyclist, as is getting sideswiped by a right-turning vehicle while I'm crossing an intersection. Also, sometimes I need to turn left, and that means merging into the auto lanes.

Personally, I prefer most auto lanes to the bike lanes. I'm easily seen, I can see others and I can make maneuvers without being wedged between parked cars and moving traffic.

That said, I plan routes that avoid as much traffic as possible. I hate getting stuck behind a cyclist when I'm driving, too.

Totally agreed:

- car lane? now you disrupt cars.

- bike lane? hope no one does something crazy.

- sidewalk? swerving all over to avoid people/poles & likely illegal.

Not a great set of choices.

Montreal has nice bike lanes. They're usually physically separated from cars. No dooring, though you still have to watch for right turns.

Completely agree with you on this one. Although I have to admit, after getting a racing-cycle I slightly changed my views. Its almost impossible to drive fluently more than a few meters either on the sidewalk or in a bike lane. Weird and changing pavement surface, bad pavement in general (the slim tires of a racing cycle make such a terrain much harder to navigate compared to using a normal bicycle), you have to switch sides frequently...

I really tried to ignore all that as the cyclists not using the existing bicycle lanes are really annoying when in a car. But in the end I gave in. I know I am annoying, but it's sometimes the only option you have.

Thankfully, city planners are increasingly disagreeing with your sentiment, and are encouraging bicyclists to use the full lane. This is proving in many cases to be safer than using the bike lane for both drivers and bicyclists. If you have ever been "doored" while riding a bicycle, or had one swerve in front of your car while escaping getting "doored", you might agree.

Either I slow down to 15 mph or I commit dangerous driving.

Tough call, considering the average speed on surface streets in most towns/cities is about 20mph or less.

Yeah, this drives me nuts. I can easily pace 20-23mph on a bicycle for quite some time in a 25mph speed zone. The problem is most of the vehicles on that road are traveling 40.

It's sillier than that. Note that I said the average speed is 20mph or less; that's not the speed limit, that's the real-world speed a car will see. So they pass you, just to have you catch up to them or pass them at the next light.

I don't think you really make the point you're trying to, given that half the time you're waiting at traffic lights, so the rest of the time you have to be doing considerably more than 20mph to achieve that as an average. Hence waiting behind a cyclist at 15mph is slowing you down quite a bit.

Well, the situation I am thinking of is a country road which the speed limit is either 35 or 50.

It's not really as much of an issue in town.

"If there is a bike lane and they aren't using it (instead being in my lane), I am pretty torqued."

Cars often stop/park in bike lanes.

Last time I was in a bike lane I ended up in an ambulance with several broken ribs, as a car decided to take a shortcut. Still looking forward to getting back in the saddle.

Bike lanes can be downright scary. Sometimes I feel alot safer riding in traffic where motorists don't have the option to ignore me.

Or, like my night last night, garbage cans. Pickup is in the morning, doesn't help me at 11pm.

Take it up with your legislature. In the states I've lived, bikes == cars with a few extra restrictions, so they're just following the law.

Out of curiosity, what state are you in where motorized vehicles get exclusive access to the lane?

Another angle is that the cyclist knows that he is slowing down a caravan of cars behind them and yet he's still OK with that. It's the egoism that is irksome.

(edit) Why the hell am I downvoted?

If you are cycling at 10 mph in a rush hour and holding back a block worth of traffic, do you seriously not have a slightest concern that you might be valuing your own interests a bit too much? And then you wonder why-oh-why the cars drivers don't love you with all their hearts. Jeez. Do not do unto others what you don't want to have done to you.

If its a block's worth of traffic, it's because the rush hour drivers are driving vehicles that are unnecessarily large for getting individuals to and from work. If such drivers were in appropriately-sized vehicles, like bicycles, there would be problem. Believe me - when you're driving an auto during rush hour, you are inconveniencing others, but because you're doing so in a conventional manner, you are likely unaware.

Or rather, that assumption is irksome, rather than its truth.

My primary goal when biking is to stay safe. Everything else is secondary. I want you to get where you're going quickly but I will not feel guilty about making you slow down if it's going to keep me alive.

As an actual real world bicyclist the ONLY reason I'm in your lane is if a car is ILLEGALLY stopped in the bike lane.

That very much depends on the city. I'm all Yay for bike lanes, but if we are sharing the road, then let's do in fact share it.

Right! I'm all for sharing the road. In fact when people are illegally stopped in the bike lane I'm not enraged or infuriated at them, even if I have to slow down or come to a complete stop behind them to wait for traffic to pass so it's safe to go around. But unlike you apparently I also don't assume their behavior is motivated by egoism!

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