<p>I wasn’t even aware of any three-foot rule. My only frustration with cars when I bike is that that there are people who don’t look both ways, or who are engaged looking at a cellphone, and we’ve had to yell to alert them of our presence. But it would be the same issue if we were walking vs biking. </p>
<p>Most people have seen that study with the person in a gorilla suite walking across college campuses and mixing it up on the basket ball court. Evolutionarily people don’t see what they aren’t looking for because it helps to increase focus on those things that we historically needed to be attentive to. Education can go along way towards getting drivers to expect, look for and actually see cyclists. Still . . . in order to be better seen it would help if cyclists ride in more predictable ways including using appropriate lighting even at dawn and dusk. As a driver I had the experience of nearly hitting cyclist in the pre-dawn hours who was unlit and wearing a multicolor but not “day glow” lycra outfit. Multicolor becomes camouflage in low light.</p>
<p>I run and bike myself, but I still get frequently annoyed at runners and bicyclists who aren’t following the rules! People who run WITH traffic, bikers who bike AGAINST traffic, bikers running stop signs, runners wearing black at night, etc. People just need to use more common sense!</p>
<p>My 2cents about the actual law: it’s not intended to be a solution but a statement that this is a law and drivers need to know it and that enables the police to give tickets for a specific offense. Without the law, the police would need to think about something like reckless driving, which is a tough ticket to give because it’s a lot of points and is very expensive on insurance (and is often then fought by drivers). That said, should people drive and ride better? Yes, of course. People make judgement errors all the time and there’s loads of jerks in cars, trucks, on bikes and on foot, with the difference being that an error in a car matters more if you hit a person. Given the idea is to prevent injuries to people …</p>
<p>What zoosermom said… I walk 1-2 miles to my downtown destination routinely. Sigh. I quite often get yelled at by cyclists for walking on where I’m supposed to walk - on sidewalks!! These spandex-clad Armstrong wannabes prefer to ride on the sidewalk instead of the clearly marked bike lanes… they drive me and other pedestrians nuts. They think they are playing it safer for themselves by moving off the street onto the sidewalk. Dear Seattle cyclists, please, please, remember - if you hit a pedestrian, you might get injured, too. Sidewalks are not automatically safer just because you think so. If there is a bike lane marked, you are not allowed on the sidewalk. And one more thing… Please do not cut in front of buses. Those big, clumsy vehicles are doing the green thing, too, and they have bike racks for you so you can take a break when you need it.</p>
<p>Oh the bikes and the buses! Terrible combination. I can’t tell you how often people play chicken with buses in Manhattan. Terrible idea because they can only stop so quickly.</p>
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This is kind of true, but I have to note that it doesn’t have to be true. It’s not true on interstate highways, for example. I think drivers and cyclists both need to do their best to share the road and to be polite–but ultimately, I think drivers have a lot more votes–so I think we are likely to see laws coming along like requiring the use of bike lanes where they are available, for example.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry if I sometimes inconvenience drivers but I have just as much right to use the road as they.”</p>
<p>If a road’s normal traffic goes at, say, 35 mph, I don’t really think bikers have the “right” to ride at 10-15 mph and keep the rest of the traffic behind them (any more than I have the “right” to drive at 15 mph and hold up traffic on the same road).</p>
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<p>The law is clear about my rights as a cyclist. I am entitled to use the road. If five drivers are behind me and unable to pass I must pull over and let them pass, just as I would if I were in a slow-moving motorized vehicle.</p>
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<p>I can’t say what might have been going through the minds of the cyclists. They may have just been being jerks. But here is a hypothesis:</p>
<p>They knew you were there. On a narrow, curvy road, motorists normally come up behind a cyclist, and smoothly pass by moving partly into the oncoming lane. That is the usual way to pass cyclists, and that is what cyclists expect. Usually, the motorist does not have to slow down, but if there are not good sight lines, for example on a curve or approaching the crest of a hill, the motorist might have to slow down briefly, or longer if there is oncoming traffic. But motorists typically get past the cyclist quickly.</p>
<p>The cyclists were wondering why you didn’t pass, when, in their judgment and experience, there was plenty of room. They wanted you to pass. But, when there was a curve, then they didn’t want you to pass because they knew you couldn’t see ahead for any oncoming traffic, and they knew that if you tried to pass in an unsafe area and oncoming traffic suddenly appeared, you’d swerve back and hit them. So on curves, they pulled out into the middle of the lane to telegraph “Don’t pass here! Wait for a safe place!”</p>
<p>When passing cyclists on a narrow country road, you’re going to be crossing the centerline, even if it’s a double yellow line. That’s the way everyone passes, and it’s perfectly safe when there are good sight lines. </p>
<p>The “coolest” bikes in Seattle are fixies with no brakes. The reason the bikes usually get to the velodrome on the bike rack or inside the car is they are dangerous as hell in traffic. I still don’t understand it.</p>
<p>I also don’t like the big group rides on the old farm roads - curvy, no lines, narrow with a ditch on each side. It is nearly impossible for a car to go any faster than the slowest cyclist. Traffic ends up at 12 mph for miles.</p>
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<p>I don’t even know what that means, or how it would make me behave. I couldn’t possibly ride my bike on the normal city streets I ride on if no one could see me. I couldn’t ride on country roads either. If no one could see me, I’d have to ride at 4 in the morning when there was no traffic.</p>
<p>Instead, I use the rule of making it easy for people to see me. I use lights and blinkies, and I try to position myself in a place where drivers expect traffic and to ride in a predictable way. </p>
<p>A lot of you are saying that there are cyclists who behave badly. There sure are! They shouldn’t do it! It’s a mistake! I have no defense for them! They need to stop doing it! </p>
<p>The difference is that drivers behaving badly are wielding deadly weapons, which kill and maim other people. Yet again I heard from an internet acquaintance this morning that he was hit by a car that “didn’t see him” (they always say that) and he “got his bell rung” (=traumatic brain injury). If I behave badly on a bike, it might inconvenience you, but if you behave badly, you might give me a brain injury. So you have a special onus to be careful around vulnerable road users.</p>
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Good grief, CF. It just means drive/ride defensively. Like you would with any vehicle. </p>
<p>Driving/riding defensively is good advice, which I attempt to follow. But nobody tells a car driver to drive as if no one sees them, because it doesn’t make sense. And it doesn’t make sense when applied to a cyclist either.</p>
<p>CF, thanks for the explanation. I think these two were crazy though. I agree with what someone said earlier about bicycle commuters being safer and more respectful of road rules than the road racing types (which these were).</p>
<p>The thing about road rules is that they help us to predict what other people/cars/bikes will do. When someone goes rogue, they put themselves and everyone else in danger. Bike rules need to be more clear and preferably more universal. Signs for bikers would be a good start.</p>
<p>Are you kidding?? One of the smartest pieces of advice is to tell new drivers that everyone else on the road is an idiot and may not see them. Teaches them to be very careful and mindful of the behaviors of others on the road.</p>
<p>Oh, road racing types. Yeah. Sigh. I tried road racing for a brief time. I couldn’t stand riding in the training rides with scofflaw riders who thought laws didn’t apply to them. </p>
<p>Some of the confusion may be the type of bike and purpose. I was recently in NOLA which has a lot of people who get around by bike. Of course it is flat, which helps. There are many bike lanes but also bikes on the narrow streets and main roads without lanes. The bikes are mostly those upright cruising bikes or BMX style bikes ridden by people in street clothes. They mostly seemed to be riding to get from place to place not as a recreational outlet. They were visible and predictable and while I’m sure there are issues like anywhere I never didn’t see a rider or feel like I couldn’t tell what they were going to do. </p>
<p>Where I live we have a mix of serious commuters on road bikes with lycra, saddle bags, etc, bicycle club road racer enthusiasts, bike messengers, recumbent bikes for pleasure, adaptive hand crank bikes, unicycles both conventional and “sport” models, hipster double decker bikes, people trailing kids in traffic NOT in bike lanes and just regular kids on bikes. There is no level of predictability as to how these different groups of riders will behave on the road and with a number of them there are serious visibility issues as well. Add a heavy dose of rain and shortened daylight hours and it’s a mess.</p>
<p>How you would act if you assume people don’t see you is make eye contact with drivers, be careful about pulling up alongside and passing on the right if there is no bike lane. Be aware of possible turning motions (just like a car driver) even when you do have the right of way and other defensive strategies. Motorcyclists say this all the time.</p>
<p>I’m supposed to make eye contact with someone who can’t see me? How does that work?</p>
<p>Another dead cyclist. Now do you see why I get angry at drivers? And this was an experienced, lawful cyclist; the LAB instructors are serious about safety, and yet he got killed by some damned driver who couldn’t be bothered to pass safely.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/sep/22/crash-oregon-kerry-kunsman-bicycle-coalition/”>http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/sep/22/crash-oregon-kerry-kunsman-bicycle-coalition/</a></p>