Originally Posted by
Bekologist
the law should prevent motorists from cutting off bicyclists, bike lane or not. oh, that's right, the law already requires that duty of care from motorists.
bicyclists get right hooked in Dallas, Michigan, Portland, San Diego.
bicyclists get hooked not by the presence or absence of stripes on the road but, rather, by motorists' failure to follow the letter of the law.
additionally, there are road striping/bike lane designs that increase safety of bikes at intersections.
In my experience, which is backed up by numerous posts on this forum, the best defense against right hooks is to avoid positioning yourself to the right of potential right-turners. That's pretty simple to do UNLESS you lack the liberty to do it. It's my understanding that Portland riders believe that they lack this liberty because some cops have been ticketing riders who do position themselves outside of badly designed bike lanes in order to avoid right hooks.
I certainly agree that some road striping/ bike lane designs increase safety at intersection. However, we all know of intersections that are not safely striped. It seems inevitable that human designed systems will sometimes be flawed, especially when some designers have little knowledge of cycling. As cyclists, if we are experienced enough, we cope with poorly designed intersections by ignoring the paint stripes. It seems a shame that some of our fellow cyclists run the risk of getting a ticket for doing just that.