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Comment by drivingmenuts | Hacker News Reader

In general, I think it's a good idea. The specifics leave a bit to be desired:

Since bicyclists want to own the lane, they'll ride to the outside, which means I have to be three feet from the outside line - which puts me into the other lane at times. Great time to be a police officer.

Occasionally, one cyclist will be in the lane and their partner will be in the car lane, riding beside them. Thus, I am stuck driving 15 mph while they merrily tool along. If I pass them, well, another great time to be a police officer.

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Cyclists aren't trying to "own" the lane any more than you are. Really, both of you own it, as citizens and road users.

The reason for being in the lane is safety. In many situations, impatient people who feel they are impeded will try to squeeze past a cyclist who is not riding safely in the lane. This is among the most frightening and dangerous things that can regularly happen to any road user.

I'm not trying to chastise you. I just hope that you can imagine the situation that other travelers are in so you don't hurt someone in impatience.

I know this is ( hopefully ) not a common occurrence, but let me tell you something that I recently witnessed.

I was driving on back-roads to my parents house, and it's not uncommon to see bikes on these roads since they are pretty good biking roads as I understand it. The difference is that these bikes were riding 4 wide on a single lane road, and they had a car in front of them driving between 15-20mph with their hazard lights on, presumably in an attempt to keep cars from passing them.

How is this not "owning" the lane? That was not the first time I've seen this happen either. Bikers also need to understand that this behavior is not reasonable.

So, if theres some farm vehicle on the back-road going 10mph, presumably you will be writing to the farmers association to say that you think "farmers need to understand that behavior is not reasonable"?

I think you need to understand that 1) roads aren't for cars going the speed limit 2) the speed limit is a limit.

So in other words, you believe that "sharing" means bikers own the road. I think you need to understand what sharing means, and it doesn't mean that you get to be an unnecessary annoyance to others.

This is the type of attitude that does not help driver/biker relations.

You've gone from mentioning a behavior that you have observed on a few occasions (cyclists apparently deliberately blocking a road, with help from a car - most likely some sort of race training) to stipulating it as the norm, which is clearly not the case. This is like the false premise of the poster above that '[s]ince bicyclists want to own the lane, they'll ride to the outside.' You're both taking examples of the worst behavior by cyclists and generalizing it to encompass all cyclists.

Incidentally, I don't own a bicycle and haven't for a long time, nor am I any fan of rude or irresponsible cyclists, whose existence I happily acknowledge.

If that's how you interpreted my response, then I apologize; that was not my intent. It was simply an observation directly responding to the post immediately above mine, not intended as a generalization.

The vast majority of cyclists that I've encountered are perfectly fine and do not engage in those behaviors I was referring to. I've simply noticed that often the ones that are loudest and most outspoken about "sharing the road" in these debates are often the ones that seem willing to share the road the least, and that immediately changes the tone from a productive one to one of "us versus them".

Ah, I see. I certainly agree with your observation that the most vociferous cyclists frequently turn out to have the worst road manners.

In my experience, farmers do not purposefully try to block the road. If you come up behind two farmers driving their tractors side by side down the road, they will almost certainly switch to single file to let you pass.

I don't get it. Why would two tractors be side by side in a single lane road? You can barely fit one on a single lane.

I think one of us is confused about the exact setup we're talking here. But of course it is wholly irrelevant; some time ago a cab in NYC jumped the curb and crushed a tourists leg, yet I'm not here screaming for cabs to be banned from the roads or asking the cab driver association why they think they can drive on the sidewalk.

As someone who grew up in a farm house and shared many roads with tractors/combines/etc, this is absolutely correct. In fact, I've never seen or heard of tractors driving side by side on a road (except, I suppose, if one tractor were trying to pass the other, but this would be highly unlikely).

I think that if the farmer does this often and does not pull over to let cars pass it when it is obstructing traffic, yes, that's a problem. For example, in my state, drivers of slow vehicles are obligated to turn off the road so that others can pass them. In my experience, drivers of slow commercial equipment tend to comply with this law, while cyclists do not.

> these bikes were riding 4 wide on a single lane road, and they had a car in front of them driving between 15-20mph with their hazard lights on, presumably in an attempt to keep cars from passing them.

How repugnant and arrogant. I'd pass out of spite alone.

Note that the Pennsylvania (four foot!) law explicitly allows cars to cross the double-yellow line to overtake bicycles as long as it is safe to do so.[1] I'm not sure what the specifics are for the California law are, but many states have existing laws on passing "obstructions" that may apply.[2]

1. http://walkbikejersey.blogspot.com/2012/02/pennsy-passes-pro...

2. http://flbikelaw.org/2013/12/no-passing-zones/

You can pass precisely like you can pass any other vehicle, and like any other vehicle they're required to get out of your way when they're holding up 5+ cars (and it's discourteous of them to block even one car for a significant duration).

Actually, except in specified circumstances in CA, bikes are forbidden from taking the lane in the first place, as they are required to ride as close as practical to the right-hand edge of the roadway.

Yes, but those specified circumstances are pretty broad. If you don't feel safe biking along a strech without taking the lane, then the middle of the lane can be "as close to the right as practicable". Being further right for the sake of being further right, where there is not enough room for a car and a bike, just creates ambiguity and makes everyone less safe, and is thus not practical.

> Yes, but those specified circumstances are pretty broad.

Not really.

> If you don't feel safe biking along a strech without taking the lane, then the middle of the lane can be "as close to the right as practicable".

You will probably usually get away with that the same way you'll usually get away with ignoring the law requiring yielding to pedestrians at intersections -- its not something the police usually care that much about enforcing. But that's not at all what the law says, and I'd be very surprised if there is any reference in the statute, or any case law, that you can point to that suggests your attempt to define "practicable" as "whatever the bicyclist subjectively feels comfortable doing" is a correct interpretation of the statute.

It literally says so in the "rules of the road". You might have missed it in your posting frenzy.

A person operating a bicycle or roller skis upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time and place shall operate on the right portion of the way as far as practicable __except when it is unsafe to do so as determined by the bicyclist__ or roller skier

(Thats Maine, but presumably it is similar elsewhere)

California, which is what is under discussion, uses "reasonably necessary", not "as determined by the cyclist", which in law generally means an objective standard (as that term is used in law -- that is, reasonable to an outside observer, in practice the trier of fact of the case in which the requirement becomes an issue), not a subjective one (i.e., not the judgement of the person to whom the requirement applies.)

"Not really."

Yes, really. Per VC 21202, it is explicitly: 1) when passing another bicycle, 2) where the cyclist is planning on making a left hand turn, 3) "[w]hen reasonably necessary to avoid conditions [...] that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge", or 4) approaching anywhere anyone can make a right hand turn. That's "pretty broad", in my book - feel free to disagree, obviously the term is subjective.

"You will probably usually get away with that the same way you'll usually get away with ignoring the law requiring yielding to pedestrians at intersections"

That is a horrendous false equivalence. Violation of that law puts people at risk. I'm advocating an interpretation of a law permitting behaviors that keep people safe.

'But that's not at all what the law says, and I'd be very surprised if there is any reference in the statute, or any case law, that you can point to that suggests your attempt to define "practicable" as "whatever the bicyclist subjectively feels comfortable doing" is a correct interpretation of the statute.'

Not "subjectively feels comfortable doing," but "reasonably considers to be the safer choice". This is the same responsibility everyone has on the road, and it's insane to think that "practicable" is not intended to take safety into account. Riding unsafely is not practicable. I have no idea whether this has been tested in court, but anything else is crazy.

> Not "subjectively feels comfortable doing," but "reasonably considers to be the safer choice".

"reasonably considers" is not in the law. "Reasonably necessary" is, but nothing that suggest that is a subjective consideration of the person subject to the requirement rather than an "objective" (as that is used in law, which isn't exactly the normal sense) determination applied to the facts.

Again, I think that you err in assigning subjectivity, and your only support is words that normally in law invoke objective standards.

I think you're making a distinction that isn't one. One must necessarily operate on their subjective assessment of objective reality.

I'm not going to take a poll or ask a lawyer every five seconds as I try to decide where I need to be.

You are, either way, subject to others disagreeing about what is reasonable; and either way, you should seek to educate yourself about what is empirically safer behavior (for reasons much more important than a ticket).

> I think you're making a distinction that isn't one.

I think youa re obscuring an important distinction: specifically, you are confusing "how you decide to act based on the law" with "what is required by the law".

> I'm not going to take a poll or ask a lawyer every five seconds as I try to decide where I need to be.

Of course not. That doesn't mean, however, that the requirements of the law are based on your subjective judgement. Obviously, with most laws, you are going to use your subjective judgement to decide how to act, even if the requirements of the law set an objective standard that will be applied should the question of whether you complied with the law ever come into controversy.

But your earlier argument was that the law accomodates your subjective judgement of necessity, which is incorrect.

"But your earlier argument was that the law accomodates your subjective judgement of necessity, which is incorrect."

I see how you can get that from what I said, but it was not meant to be a specific claim in any strong sense.

As I said here, though, there are better reasons than "complying with the law" to make sure your subjective assessment of safety matches reality, and given that your subjective assessment of safety matches reality the law does say what I said above.

'If you don't feel safe biking along a strech without taking the lane, then the middle of the lane can be "as close to the right as practicable".'

As discussed in the thread starting with dragonwriter's response to the above, I should note that this assumes your feeling has a basis in reality. If you want to be sure you don't get a ticket (beyond simply relying on a tendency not to ticket for these things), you should be able to point to why riding where you were riding is objectively safer than riding further to the right.

This reminds me of instructions on the sticker of Velibs, the bike sharing program in Paris. If the road is to narrow for a car to safely overtake you, you should stick to the center of the lane.

At any rate it's pretty dangerous to ride a bike too close to the sidewalk or parked cars. I try to keep a meter (about 3 feet) on the right as well when I cycle.

I understand that not all bikers share this mentality, but I do often feel like "sharing the road" means "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" when I see people doing things like this. This does not help driver/biker relations.

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