Originally Posted by
Helmet Head
There is no such thing as "the vc method" (since vc is not a method), so the assertion "when the vc method doesn't quite work" is meaningless. Perhaps you're saying there are places and conditions where riding in accordance with the vehicular rules of the road "doesn't work". Pray tell, where would that be?
Ah yes, the semantics and nuance...
While the "rules of the road**" do indeed work everywhere, actually riding a bike in a vehicular manner tends to fall apart as the speed of traffic becomes vastly greater than that which a cyclist can maintain... in which case the cyclist appears more and more like a rolling pedestrian; to such an extent that there are even non-vehicular workarounds to such things as left turns.
The vehicular cyclist also needs co-operation from other users of the road, as does any other vehicle driver... this is part of the basic mantra of vehicular cycling... where cyclists are to "act and are treated as drivers of a vehicle...; " if that latter part, "being treated as a driver of a vehicle" is not present, and thus the co-operation of other users of the road is not given, then vehicular cycling fails.
** a loosely defined definition of generally accepted practices that tends to form the basis for the western worlds' driving practices.