The fading bike lane is he norm in Richmond it seems, but there are a few where the bike lane is woven inward so that the bike lane changes from being the outer lane to being the second lane in and the second lane weaves out to become the turning lane. Having previously read the comments around here on both motorcycle and bicycle articles it seems like it is a mess of inconsistencies across places.
The bike-lane fade is common in MA as well (at least, it goes to dashed, it doesnāt actually disappear), but, as is covered in my last link above, a car still must execute a safe merge to the right side of the road, with awareness of cyclists who are behind and to the right of them, just as they would if they were changing regular lanes. Itās just that with the āfadedā bike lane, they should do it a little sooner.
If the car has already moved all the way over to the right, as they are supposed to (at least where there are dashed lines, I donāt know about your vanishing lines) then there shouldnāt be room for a bike to zoom by on the right. While itās totally possible that they do, generally this complaint is from cars who either (1) never moved over at all, and never acknowledged that the bike lane has ever existed, or (2) are complaining about not being allowed to merge, in which case they do need to wait until the current flow of bikes has passed.
A disappearing bike lane still doesnāt give cars the right to merge or turn in front of a bike thatās immediately behind and to the right of them.
(But yes, if a car has safely moved all the way to the right, and is executing a right turn, and a biker tries to squeeze to their right, then the bike is in the wrong. But honestly, it is far more common for a car not to notice that they are turning right in front of a bike than it is for a bike to deliberately squeeze to the far right of an already-turning car.)
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I think your complaint is asinine. It seems you were approaching the cyclist from behind. It is entirely on you to be driving at a safe speed and to overtake him safely. If this means waiting for there to be room, well so be it. Did you not see him until the last minute, or was it you who was racing him for the limited gap? You donāt have to āmagically not be thereā, but simply be observant and drive at a speed that allows you to yield right of way safely when you are practically, morally and/or legally required to do so.
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You make a lot of assumptions.
I saw the cyclist swerve out at the last minute as I came by at a reduced speed from the posted 60kph as I was familiar with the narrowing of the road at that point.
As I stated, I could have jumped on the brake and risked clipping the idiot anyway, or accelerated past him giving him a fright but not otherwise doing harm.
I drive a large SUV that isnāt agile, and while I serviced the brakes and tie rods in the front recently, I wasnāt going to be able to dead stop in less than the 30 feet the idiot left himself.
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Youāre driving dangerously if you are unable to avoid running into things without drastic maneuvering. Did the cyclist appear out of nowhere? Or were you not paying attention? Drivers of unwieldy vehicles simply need to allow greater space and reaction time. Theyāre not inherently unsafe, but they must be driven accordingly.
Sounds to me like you decided to give the cyclist a āpunishment passā as a result of your instantaneous assessment of his level of intelligence or some other factor.
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I actually noticed him as a possible concern when he got out of his seat to accelerate into the gap.
I pulled slightly to the left and came passed into the gap he had tried to race toward.
Simple risk assessment.
I had a similar occurrence with my three sons in the car a few years back when a slow moving car floated from my left into my lane. We were approaching a highway exit and so I curved slightly to my left into the exit lane and went around. No panic braking or gunning it forward or honking the horn. Just a simple avoidance move as best I could in a split second.
My oldest boy whispered āniceā, and we continued on.
Alive.
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The cognitive blind spot is very real. I never rely on making eye contact with motorists as it is essentially meaningless and always confusing. At worst, it can lead to a misunderstood acknowledgment, when none exists, as you have described. They can be staring right at you and not seeing you at all. I actively avoid it.
When I am giving way at a 4-way stop sign, I deliberately do not look directly at the motorist. That way, they can be under no allusion that I am doing anything other than waiting for them to proceed. They know I am not looking for them to wave me through, or that I am trying to judge whether I can sneak through. I just slow, stop if required and wait patiently. It matters not whether they have seen me, because Iām not going to move until after they have gone. I will unclip and place a foot on the ground, and relax with my forearms on the bars, while looking at anything but them, if necessary to get them to move. Sometimes it takes quite a while. I think this is because motorists are used to cyclists being pretty aggressive at these 4-way stops.
It is best to work on the default assumption that a motorist will attempt move into your space if they are physically able to do so, and be ready for when, one day, they do.
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You chose to overtake him at the point the road was narrowing, and you think it was his fault?
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And further more, if I had chose to brake in either instance I ran the risk of losing control and harming my loved ones, which is my first responsibility.
If a cyclist wants to challenge cars he is a menace. Which gas been my point all along, and is my criticism of bike lanes.
Bikes are not a necessary transport device for the most part. They are part of the leasure industry. Especially where I live where most of the cyclists are hobby racers.
I own a road bike myself and used to ride on civic roadways until buses became over entitled and would routinely close me off to pick up and drop off passengers, even though I was in a ābike laneā and supposedly had the right of way.
On top of commuter drivers who routinely donāt pay attention, my enjoyment of a 60km ride into Toronto from Hamilton is now a faded memory.
I ride the rollers now and catch up on YouTube videos while I get some exercise.
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The road wasnāt actually narrowing. He was approaching the back of a parked car and foolishly thought that I should brake dangerously hard to let him through.
You werenāt there. You assume the cyclist was right no matter how he behaved. In this case had I not done what I did he could have died or been seriously injured.
I hope for your own safety you donāt try to pull a stunt like that to prove yourself right on sunny Saturday morningā¦you may find yourself behind someone not actually paying attention and making simliar assumptions to you.
Safe driving.
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So you were going too fast for conditions. Thatās a ticketable offense right there, even without an accident.
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Wait, so the cyclist was on the road ahead of you, and needed to move more into the center of the lane because of a parked car? So you sped up to overtake him?
How many ways could you be wrong in this situation? The more you explain, the worse it gets.
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Why would it matter what class of vehicles you personally consider ānecessary transportā? Given that bicycles are considered vehicles in most jurisdictions and fall under traffic law, I am assuming that you donāt make driving decisions based on this arbitrary classification.
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Weāve not changed AMKās view of this at all; but Iām increasingly convinced he was wrong in terms of safety, courtesy, morality, decency and in law. The true outcome of this discussion is that he now hates cyclists who get in the way of his large and unwieldy SUV even more. I just hope Iām not the next cyclist he chooses to punish.
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Heās got a bit of a track record here, so Iām not going to try to convince him of anything, but it just got weirder and weirder the more he was describing things.
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Theyāve been invited to take greater risks to their safety by the placement of lines on the road which suddenly disappear or change seemingly arbitrarily causing concern for drivers and cyclists alike
Now we are seeing a flood of wheelchairs, e-bikes and so on into these lanes also adding to the bureaucrat driven chaos.
You must have some crazy complicated bike lanes.
According to a policeman friend, all vehicles must adhere to the rules of the road.
I will liken my situation with the cyclist to an issue on the highway where slow moving cars persist on entering the highway at man tens of kilometers slower than moving traffic and expecting highway speed drivers to slow down.
Itās dangerous driving, much as the cyclist in my situation was determined to merge with a vehicle travelling at 50kph while was going no more than 10kph putting himself and others at risk.
And I would like to add that Iām a cyclist myself and certainly would shoulder check in such a situation and reasonably conclude it foolish to challenge a road speed vehicle approaching a narrowing of the roadway.
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Iām underqualified compared to the others youāve been duelling with, but this thinking is part of what led to me putting my handle bars through a Blazerās passenger window during a left turn.
Yes, I could have been more aware. But he was both in a position to see more than I possibly could, and in one of power that meant he could take my life at will.
It makes a difference.
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Yep. In Burlington on walkers line where I used to live you would see a half mile of lane marked, then it would vanish, only to appear on the bridge across the highway then disappear past the next lights then appear again for another quarter mile and then go for good all the way to lakeshore.
Each of these designated legal zones have their own lawful enforceable penalties of course, but good luck knowing when you are in our out of one zone or another at any time, especially moving at upwards of 40kph downhill.
