Originally Posted by
njkayaker
A perceptual limitation tends to make slow/not-moving things less noticeable. (This is what allows cop cars to hide in plain site.) Being a much slower object where a driver is accustomed not to expect such things (ie, in the middle of the lane) tends to be unsafe.
This limitation is worse with larger differences in speed (because higher differences mean less time to process and react).
While it isn't common, even things like cop cars in the lane even with flashers going get run into. Visibility helps but it isn't enough.
Always "taking the lane" isn't "sharing the road" because it is not cooperating with the other road users.
Very much agreed... Exactly the points made in the book:
"Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" by Tom Vanderbilt.
This is an excellent read and I highly recommend it. It is a fun read as well... this is not a boring tome of a book.
Tom Vanderbilt discusses this perceptual limitation issue extensively as the reason that people plow into construction sites on the roadway and such obvious things as large stopped garbage trucks... never mind, slow cyclists. We have a hard time dealing with objects with differential speeds over 20MPH... humans just were not designed that way. Heck, even John Forester mentions that differential speeds of over 15 MPH make it difficult for cyclists to negotiate with motorists.
This is not an unknown phenomena... and yet we continually deny it as cyclists taking the lane on high speed roadways.
There was a thread here not long ago talking about the Tom Vanderbilt book:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ght=Vanderbilt