Silly me (as a poster, that is)Originally Posted by Cam
I forgot to mention I was using the bicycle lane.
Silly me (as a poster, that is)
I forgot to mention I was using the bicycle lane.
That doesn't change the risk factor. It just leads cyclists into trouble, thinking that they can safely filter forward when they can't. A lot of drivers will do the right thing and not right hook you. Some won't.
I move out of the bicycle lane when approaching intersections, driveways and ramps. I ride in the center of the right most travel lane. It strongly discourages the right hook. It also reduces my risk of people pulling out in front of me from all of those by making it easier to see me because I'm in the place where they are looking for cars and not in the place where they are not looking for bicycles. Many people don't look for bikes in the bike lane. Many only look for cars in the travel lane. The best way to be seen is to be where drivers are already looking. Even if they do still pull out in front of me, I have more room for evasive action by using the full lane.
I also do it for forks when I'm going left at the fork -- I ride in the right most travel lane that's going left and I move into that lane hundreds of feet before I get to the fork so that I'm not in a last second merge situation.
Actually it almost certainly changes the risk factor. Not eliminate it, but it will be different.That doesn't change the risk factor. It just leads cyclists into trouble, thinking that they can safely filter forward when they can't. A lot of drivers will do the right thing and not right hook you. Some won't.
I think most drivers would have made their right turn, if not when I slowed down at least two driveways behind them, then when I slowed to almost a crawl (not quite trackstand) as I got closer.
To have moved out of the lane would probably be unexpected by at least some drivers. There was more than just the single car at the intersection, though traffic couldn't be said to be heavy, even for the single traffic lane.I move out of the bicycle lane when approaching intersections, driveways and ramps. I ride in the center of the right most travel lane. It strongly discourages the right hook. It also reduces my risk of people pulling out in front of me from all of those by making it easier to see me because I'm in the place where they are looking for cars and not in the place where they are not looking for bicycles. Many people don't look for bikes in the bike lane. Many only look for cars in the travel lane. The best way to be seen is to be where drivers are already looking. Even if they do still pull out in front of me, I have more room for evasive action by using the full lane.
I also do it for forks when I'm going left at the fork -- I ride in the right most travel lane that's going left and I move into that lane hundreds of feet before I get to the fork so that I'm not in a last second merge situation.
In fact, the intersection has a silly bicycle box at the front.
Bicycle lanes are relatively new in the city, and these are very new, having been modified last year from two-lane wide single lanes. Without the bicycle lane, the issue would have been different. Likely the car would have pulled further over to the right and I would have ended up behind it, if not others, naturally.
The first portion of lanes they added was wonderful. I'll describe it later. It fixed a bad intersection in a very logical way. But when they made the lanes the entire length of the road, it was worse. Especially since they added central traffic furniture.
Oh... On a narrow bridge near here, single lane each way, they use these signs together with sharrows now.
They do expect to find traffic in the middle of the lane. They might not expect bicycles but when there's a bicycle in the spot where they are looking for a car, they see the bicycle. The point is that they are not looking in the bike lane. When you're in the place that they aren't looking, that's when you aren't seen.
That is how my last collision happened. I was in the bike lane and the driver did not see me. If I had been in the travel lane, she almost certainly would have. I have a lot less problems with people pulling in front of me when I use the full lane because they always see me and even the ones that do look for bikes see me sooner when I'm using the full lane.
But the problem here concerns a car which did see me and decided to wait for some reason, apparently wanting me to pass on the right.
It's somewhat problematic having one straight-or-right-turn lane to the left of another (ie. the bicycle lane).
Boo! Strava no longer hazards a guess at instantaneous speed.
Last edited by SportWagon; May 2nd, 2016 at 10:46 AM.
That's what I'm saying. By moving out into the travel lane, I don't have to deal with this problem. The problem is created by putting straight through traffic on the turning side of turning traffic. I avoid being on the turning side of turning traffic when I'm going straight through.
Just got back from a couple of weeks in Italy. Was interesting seeing how things went for cyclists there (though I only got to ride in one city).
There were basically no bikes at all in Venice. Not sure if there's some rule against them or if they just don't work (there are a lot of stairs to climb over the many canals), but there were also no cars. Pedestrian paradise.
Trento was amazing. The central, old town part of the city was car limited - only drivers with special permits could drive on those streets, and they were well aware that they had to yield to everyone. The rest of the city was reasonably normal when it came to cars, but they all seemed to handle the massive number of cyclists very well. I don't think I heard a single horn my entire time there. They also had a lovely separated path along the river by the city. We got a couple of bikeshare bikes and rode all around town one morning - it was great.
Florence was when we started hitting the stereotypical Italian drivers. The sidewalks, though, were borderline criminal. Some could not be wider than 18 inches, while the streets were wide enough to support parking. The one time I saw a sidewalk more than 4 feet wide it had a bunch of cars parked on it.
Rome was similar when it came to the driving. The drivers there basically ignore the lines in the road, don't stop for stop signs, and text. However, it was so jam packed with other drivers that a) nobody could get going all that fast, and b) everyone expected to have to brake regularly. I saw a lot of people riding there and the drivers all seemed to be able to handle it fine. There was no attitude that you should be able to get up to 10mph above the speed limit and never have to slow down like you have here. And, again, very little honking.
I wish I'd gotten to ride in Rome. I think it would have been spectacular. 'Course, I like road bikes and those roads are like Paris-Roubaix, so maybe it wouldn't have been so great.
Don't you have a Roubaix?
Back in the 80's a co-worker of mine went to Naples and said that the roads were pandemonium. The lines on the road meant nothing. If a space could fit a car, a car would be in it.
The Roubaix got stolen a couple of years ago, have a Madone now.
And yep, that's a pretty accurate description. If there's room, someone will try to fit their vehicle in it. On the other hand, it really seemed to keep drivers from going on auto-pilot. Mopeds and bikes were constantly filtering around all the cars, and I didn't see the same type of "get out of my way" mentality you get here.
Sadly, though, I did see just about the same level of texting & driving there as I do here.
Bikes banned from park, partly based upon Strava speeds.
http://www.tetongravity.com/story/ge...alifornia-park
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