Originally Posted by
Six jours
Please don't be reasonable, Will. This isn't the place for it.
Seriously, though, that dovetails with a side topic that was being discussed on another thread: at what point does your personal comfort level allow you to inconvenience other road users? Obviously we're all uncomfortable with 6" passing, so it's reasonable to take actions that preclude 6" passes. But then we get into the three feet, four feet, "I need 17.5 feet to myself" business, and it gets ridiculous.
It's kind of like the legal standard for self-defense: "I shot him because I felt in danger" isn't enough. In order for that shooting to have been justifiable, a "reasonable person" would have had to have felt in danger in the same situation.
IMO -- and I believe legally -- "feeling unsafe" is justification for taking the lane only if the average cyclist would feel unsafe in the same situation. And judging by the way the "average person" seems to ride, being within a foot or two of a curb wouldn't qualify.
In the case of bicyclists, the "average person" is responsible for at least half of the crashes in which he is engaged, and arguably (per the fundamental principle of defensive driving) could have avoided the vast majority of the remainder if he did things differently, including pay more attention to where he rides and why. So I, for one, reject the notion that where the "average person" seems to ride is any basis for a rational justification for lane positioning behavior.