Originally Posted by Helmet Head
We are comparing the risks of:
- Riding in center during gaps, being off to the side only when fsdt is present or approaching.
- Being off to the side the entire time.
I wasn't comparing those things. Why are you? Check your thread title. "Narrow lane crashes". These are lanes where there is not enough space for a large vehicle to pass a cyclist without entering an adjacent lane, are they not?
You stated, I think, that direct-rear-end crashes on these types of road may be less common than motorist drift-over to the side crashes, as you might have on wider roads.
If the road is so wide you can move over to let overtaking traffic pass without it moving left, I agree, but my examples dealt with accidents from cyclists taking narrow lanes, as the thread title suggests.
Originally Posted by Helmet Head
The point is, the ratio of number of safe slow downs to slow downs that result in a rear-ender is very high.
Why is that the point? Why is that relevant at all? The fact that there are tens of thousands of motorists who do not run into each other is a irrelevant given and a meaningless statement. Even if the rate of rear-end collisions is very low, which it is for a given traffic-slow scenario, the odds of it happening over the span of a couple of years grows enough to represent a concern. Almost everyone I know who drives has been in at least a minor hit-from-behind collision in traffic. And minor in a car is often major on a bike.
Originally Posted by Helmet Head
Yes, they are not paying attention/momentarily not watching the road because at that moment they don't expect a sudden a slow down, so they allow themselves to attend to a distraction.
Except if you spend much time riding in traffic, you know that drivers in general pay much more attention to a cyclist in front of them than to a car in front of them.
On this point on completely agree. Cyclists are rare enough that they garner extra attention. This is a good thing.
But not a solution. If motorists are willing to take their eyes off the car in front of them when they know it might stop, then a bicycle taking the lane ahead must gather some of the same risks.