Originally Posted by filtersweep
No No No NO NO!
Multiple passes only mean one thing- if the road were that narrow that the driver needed to pass with caution, it means the bike rider was an A$$HAT. It means the bike kept passing the car on the right when he probably shouldn't. The BIKE and not the car should have hung back. I really hate that crap- a narrow road where I need to take care to pass a bike- who in turn blows to the front of the line when the light turns red, forcing me to repass each block. Sorry, but I'll give less and less space as these idiots keep pulling that stunt. They can't have it both ways.
Really tend to agree here... especially if there were multiple incidents of the bike passing on the right.
If a cyclist passes on the the right, it should be because there is a reasonable feeling the the motor traffic is not going to continue to flow smoothly, and the cyclist is simply taking advantage of their narrow profile to move on out.
If, on the other hand, there is a constant back and forth situation, then both for smooth flow of traffic AND to stay out of that door zone, AND to indicate their position in traffic, the cyclist should have ridden in the lane with a postition away from the far right side... behind one of the motor vehicles and acted just like another driver in traffic... moving and flowing with traffic.
The only caveat to this is that sometimes the motorist following the cyclist then gets all bent out of shape as "gee, that's just a bicycle" and tries to pass and then honks, revs engine etc. (this is where the motorists also have to co-operate... dammit!)
It sounds as if the speed and flow were such that the cyclist should have simply held their ground in traffic and moved with the flow of cars, and should NOT have been on the right (near the parked cars, which can be dangerous). At the same time the motorist in the original post should not have passed the cyclist multiple times... and the cyclist could have prevented this by simply riding out into the lane instead of hugging the far right edge.
Now this begs the question... would the original poster have been OK with the cyclist riding just in front of his auto... or would he have become a "reving/honker?"