Originally Posted by billh
I'm having this little argument on our local cycling board in St Louis, see below, about whether the two cyclists I saw were breaking the law. The Missouri vehicle code is as follows:
"Riding to right, required for bicycles and motorized bicycles.
307.190. Every person operating a bicycle or motorized bicycle at less than the posted speed or slower than the flow of traffic upon a street or highway shall ride as near to the right side of the roadway as safe, exercising due care when passing a standing vehicle or one proceeding in the same direction,
EXCEPT
when making a left turn, when avoiding hazardous conditions, when the lane is too narrow to share with another vehicle, or when on a one-way street.
Bicyclists may ride abreast when not impeding other vehicles." (bold added for emphasis)
<snipped>
I claim the cyclists were breaking the law by impeding traffic riding two abreast, and that they should have been riding single file and sharing the lane because from experience on this road, the lane is wide enough to share with a car side-by-side. Thoughts?
link
While I think the cyclist were "impeding" the motorist since he had to slow down for them, I would tend to focus on the part of the law stating in part that they must ride as near to the right side of the road as safe except "...when the lane is too narrow to share with another vehicle." Since these types of laws never give a measurement, I think the judgement about whether a lane is too narrow for sharing may be different for different cyclist. There is a street in my area that has a 25 mph speed limit, however, motorist regularly break the speed limit. Some cyclist ride close to the right edge, however I, and I'm sure some other cyclist, don't feel safe riding on the edge and encouraging people to pass me too close to me while breaking the speed limit. So I take the whole lane. So some people think the lane is wide enough to share and some think it is not.
So could it be that they thought the lane was not wide enough to share with another car, but wide enough to share with another cyclist. If the lane is too narrow to share with a car, does the riding abreast law still apply? Technically, I think so, and therefore, I think they were breaking the law. But if they felt the lane was too narrow to share with a car, I don't see how it would matter to a car behind them.