Cyclists stick to the right of the road exactly so cars can pass them safely.
Anyway, I'm out of this discussion, I find it very interesting that commenters from countries where cycling is decidedly unsafe are going to lecture those from countries where the predominant mode of transportation is the bicycle on safe cycling practices. If the US would adopt half the measures of what we consider normal here when it comes to roads and other facilities for cyclists and cyclists there would adopt half the practices of what we here consider safe cycling then you might have a chance at making cycling a viable means of transportation.
In the meantime, good luck with 'assertive cycling', occupy that lane, it's yours after all and make sure you wear that helmet, you'll need it.
This is exactly the point though. The guidelines that apply in the Netherlands are different to the guidelines in, say, the UK, precisely because the two countries have very different attitudes towards cycling. In the Netherlands you have an environment where cycling is extremely common, motorists are very used to sharing the roads and in fact most motorists are also cyclists themselves. This dramatically reduces the sort of us vs them conflicts between cyclists and motorists that seem so common in other countries. Different types of road user are seen more or less equally and show each other a level of respect that is just about unheard of elsewhere. In such an environment, hogging the lane seems unnecessarily aggressive because you simply don't need to do it.
In the UK, USA and just about everywhere else motorists are simply not used to driving close to cyclists. They don't know how much space to leave, they don't know how to pass them safely, it's actually socially acceptable to be aggressive towards cyclists but most of all, motorists are not on the lookout for cyclists, they are not expecting them. In this kind of environment the cyclist's number one priority is to make themselves seen and that's why being assertive is so important.
If you're in the middle of the lane by default the car behind you might be annoyed but at least they are likely to see you, and when you've been seen you can then move closer to the kerb to allow them to pass you safely. This puts the cyclist in control in a situation where they'd normally be at the mercy of motorists.
We are lecturing you on the optimal way to cycle in /our country/, not yours. Sure, your country might have a thing or five to teach us about infrastructure, laws, and cultural norms regarding bike traffic, but when it comes to what an /individual bicyclist/ should do given the situation here, we absolutely have a better idea than you do. It's like comparing driving in a easygoing city and driving in an aggressive city--sure, the driving in the former is on the whole safer than in the latter, but driving in an easygoing manner in an aggressive city is much more likely to get you into trouble than driving aggressively will.
Cyclists are perfectly safe on their own, it's up to the rest of the traffic to keep them safe and treat them as if they're made of glass.
People who cycle on roads expecting cars to take full responsibility for their safety are unlikely to last very long. A cyclist needs to operate within their own safety tolerances, rather than expect others to provide safety to them.
If everybody would be traveling at their 'individual threshold for safe braking' there wouldn't be any cyclists at all.
> People who cycle on roads expecting cars to take full responsibility for their safety are unlikely to last very long. > A cyclist needs to operate within their own safety tolerances, rather than expect others to provide safety to them.
And that attitude is the heart of the problem right there. Cyclists can expect other traffic, especially armored guided projectiles to take their fragility into account.
I sincerely hope you're not a driver. And if you are that you stay away from my country, it took a few decades to get rid of that attitude here and the number of accidents dropped in spite of more people in traffic, including kids and the elderly.
Cyclists absent other traffic have a very good safety record, as soon as you mix traffic at different speeds the situation gets dangerous especially if the stronger of the two parties expects cyclists to provide their own safety, by nature of being unprotected humans they need cooperation from other traffic.
I do drive, and when I do so I rely on the experience of cycling 2500km last year on public roads. You seem to be relying on experience of arguing pointlessly for the sake of noise on the internet.
All cyclists should travelling at a speed where they are capable of breaking before potential hazards. If this includes unexpected cardoors then they should be travelling slowly enough to respond to the danger.
Why do you think they travel above a speed where they have adequate breaking time? Why do you think they should deserve this special treatment that is not afforded to other vehicles?
The obvious example is fatal accidents involving large goods vehicles and cyclists in London. Women are vastly disproportionately likely to be involved in this class of accident, despite being under-represented in overall accident statistics. The leading theory is that women ride less assertively, putting them in dangerous situations at junctions. They're more likely to undertake and less likely to take the lane, jump red lights or bang on a window to make their presence known. They vanish into the large blind spots that surround large goods vehicles. In all likelihood, these cyclists are dying of politeness.
All you should have to do to survive in traffic is to obey the traffic rules and the onus is on the rest of the traffic to give you the space you require in order to be safe. Anything less simply won't do.
Is this article the source of your claim?
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/women-cycling-in-londo...
If so I'd expect something a little bit more substantial to be presented as 'the leading theory', it's just a news paper article repeating a claim by a sports cyclist.
Lorries should be equipped with mirrors overseeing the area to the immediate side of the vehicle. And contrary to the statement in the article the safest place to be is not in front of a lorry but behind it, as a cyclist you should never ever go beside a lorry unless it is stopped and unlikely to move in the next minute.
After all, in order to get out in front of the truck you're going to have to be beside it anyway for a while (and how long will depend greatly on how fast you are moving, something a professional racing cyclist might over-estimate for the general population of cyclists.