HiYoSilver

Does the timing of the commuting ride effect the driver's patience levels for a slow moving vehicle? Around here, drivers give you more leeway if you're not riding in that window where they left late and are worried about getting to work on time.

noisebeam

There seems to be some correlation. I find my AM commute to be always very pleasant, except one left turn I must negotitate out of a bike lane, where I get ignored often. But I have never once been yelled at or honked in the 6:45-7:30a time frame. A buzz here and there, but due (in my guess) to unawareness, not hostility.
The PM commute is where I get all the hostility and it peaks in the area around the freeway with traffic getting on and off. It is especially bad when the freeway is full and overflow traffic is using the surface streets I use. 5-6pm is worst, but I have had bad experiences at 4pm and during the lunch hour. Traffic is much denser (but not slower) for my PM commute, so the correlation is more with density than with time.

Al

sggoodri

80% of my bike commuting route is narrow lanes, about half of it posted 45 mph, the rest 35. As a vehicular cyclist, I don't wish these conditions on other cyclists; I promote wider outside lanes on busy high-speed roads to reduce social friction. But I don't want my own use of these roads taken away or marginalized, either, because I need them to reach my destinations. Advocacy for improved engineering must be balanced with advocacy to protect the legitimacy of using the roads we have. After all, it's generally not the road that is dangerous to cyclists, but the actions of other road users who are not sharing it effectively.

My city, a "sprawling" suburb, is building many new roads and widening others, which makes it possible to make helpful engineering changes in a lot of places. But other unpleasant roads here probably won't be improved in my lifetime. This motivates the discussion of optimal techniques for using the roads as they are. This creates another balancing act: a sub-optimal but lawful use of the roads shouldn't be considered negligence on a cyclists' behalf, (i.e. riding near the gutter isn't the *cause* of right hook collisions, it merely puts one at increased risk) but assertive useful behaviors like "taking the lane" must be defended against those who wish to prohibit them, either for the convenience of motorists, or out of false claims of serving cyclists' "own good."

-Steve Goodridge

LittleBigMan

As a 30+ year resident of Atlanta, I've been bicycle commuting and enjoying it immensely for the last decade.

I am suprised that you believe one visit made you more of an expert on Atlanta bicycle commuting than those who actually do commute by bicycle here.

I'm really glad I didn't read comments like yours when I first came to these forums. I might have been discouraged from experiencing some of the most wonderful moments of my life.

You recently posted a thread about how many bicycle commuters you counted in Santa Barbara. You felt that Santa Barbara encouraged bicycle commuting, which is a good thing. But now, you are actively discouraging people from riding in places that don't fit your idea of what "good bicycling" is, and what's more, you don't even live there!

When I first came to these forums, I felt it was a place where people like me could be encouraged to ride, even though most car-centric people around them tried to talk them out of it. I still hope it can be such a place! But it seems the politics of bicycle advocacy is more important than encouraging people to ride...

Helmet Head

Something I haven't written about in a while, is whatI have referred to as the debilating, or stupefying, effect of bike lanes on cyclists.

There is no better example of what I mean than Diane's perspective on cycling in Atlanta, which has apparently been debilitated by her experiences of riding in the Santa Barbara environment riddled with segregated facilities.

Human beings are very conditionable. An extreme example of this is how abused children and spouses often are conditioned to accept the abuse internally as normal. There is also the syndrome where kidnap victims grow attached to their kidnappers.

To a lesser degree, of course, I believe there is something akin to this psychologically going on here. That is, once one is conditioned to the "norms" of segregated cycling, the alternative (cycling in Atlanta) seems abnormal, uncomfortable, unsafe, undoable, much like an abused wife cannot picture living without her abusive husband.

"Sadly, all I could picture was I would use the sidewalk or discontinue being a bicycle commuter."

Sadly, indeed.

chipcom 

I guess we had better discourage hills then too, since they also have a debilating, or stupefying, effect on many cyclists. Then there is rain, snow, cold, gravel, mud and one that really debilates the OCPers, lack of Starbucks.

DCCommuter

I didn't mean to imply that you had implied that. The reason I started off that way is that California law is somewhat peculiar. Most states' vehicle codes distinguish between "motor vehicles," which broadly speaking is something that needs a license plate to be legal, and "vehicles," which include motor vehicles but also includes other lawful roadway users such as horse-drawn wagons, mopeds and bicycles.

Most states that have a "pull-over" law limit them to motor vehicles, so I was surprised to read that California's law applies to "vehicles." Then I read the definitions and realized a "vehicle" in California law is equivalent to a "motor vehicle" in other states. I should have read further before I jumped to the conclusion that bicycles were thus exempt from that section.

I'm going to circle back and tie this in to the topic at hand. Many states have laws that govern the operation of slow-moving vehicles, (not just motor vehicles). For example, this is what Virginia has to say on the matter:
Many other states have similar laws; the slow-moving vehicle emblem can usually either be a triangle or a flashing amber light. I will stipulate that these laws actually have some reason behind them, that slow-moving vehicles are at an increased risk of collision, and that the emblems actually tend to reduce this risk.

Now Virginia, like most other states, exempts bicycles from this requirement. I'll posit that the reason is not because bicycles have a better safety record than other slow-moving vehicles. Rather, I'd suspect that it's because plowing into the back of a bicycle is a lot less dangerous than plowing into the back of a combine, for the person doing the plowing. (Also, it's notoriously difficult to get cyclists to do anything!)

What I'm getting at is that cyclists who operate in faster traffic may want to think of themselves as slow-moving vehicles, and even though the law does not require it, equip themselves accordingly.

Helmet Head

DC, you bring up some interesting points. I'm not sure whether to address them here, or start a separate SMV thread to compare and contrast bicycles with SMVs.

Brian Ratliff

Wow, are you a medical professional making a psychiatric diagnosis? Or is this simply a subtle insult to sbhikes.

The view from a car is always worse that the view from the bike, so by driving a route, I find it always looks more difficult than it actually is. However, when making a judgement about how difficult a route is, one must take into account one's own abilities and equipment. What sbhikes posted was refering to her own decision based on what she saw. Perhaps someone used to the traffic in Atlanta would not be as put off by the situation.

What this does illustrate is that roads without cycling facilities are not accessable by all people of all abilities, either in actuality or by perception. Is this the status quo you are trying to keep? The messages I hear are conflicting. On one hand, we try to convince people that cycling is not inherently dangerous, and then on the other, some of us feel the need to frighten novices off of roads that we deem too advanced for them by advocating against bike facilities. On one hand, some of us enlist the psychology of a phobia and "cyclo-segregationism" to illustrate how bike lanes are an opiate for the cycling masses, and on the other, those same people discount the psychology of the reaction of drivers and cyclists to a painted line as being, well... only psychological.

The OP of this thread illustrates how one of the assumptions that we all make does not always hold true. We assume that we cause no more than a small "speed bump" in traffic, when, in fact, we may be holding things up more than we thought and causing more threats to our safety than we are solving by taking the lane. I've encountered this when I ride the longer route of my commute along a rural highway. Sometimes, even when vehicular cycling principles dictate that I take the lane, courtesy, common sense and safety dictate that I cede the roadway to a line of cars traveling behind.

One may argue that taking the lane and ignoring the cars behind is the safest thing one can do. I beg to differ. When cars line up behind a cyclist, 15 mph is slooooowwww for a car. If this situation is forced on them for too long, the drivers will take more risks to try to pass. I can be riding on my rural highway and be on an uphill curve on a section of roadway where the lanes are of substandard width and no shoulder. This happens quite frequently on my route; in one spot, I even gave it a name: The Throat. Common vehicular cycling principle will dictate I hold the lane through the entire uphill 'S' curve. Unfortunately, even though the two curves are blind, cars will risk passing. The more I stay toward the center of the lane, the more risk the cars will assume. The more risks the cars assume, the more risk I assume. So I stay to the side, and accept that they may pass with only a foot to spare. This turns out to be the safer option.

Someone once noted that for every rule, there is an exception. This certainly holds true for vehicular cycling.

Helmet Head

I did not mean to insult Diane. I did mean to bring attention to the possible effect of facilities riding on her perspective on the viability of cycling in an area without facilities.


It also holds true for vehicular carring, vehicular motor scootering, vehicular cement trucking, vehicular farm tractoring, and vehicular horse and buggying.

Perhaps a farm tractor would keep to the right on your S curve incline too. Would the farm tractor driver be violating vehicular driving principles if he did? Of course not. Why do you assume doing so on a bicycle would?


Where is the conflict?
When I say that cycling is not inherently dangerous, I mean the danger is not insurmountable. I don't mean there is no danger. Just like even though stove cooking is not inherently dangerous, I don't let my 5 year old do it. She has not developed the skills and understanding that make stove cooking safe. It's too advanced for her. She might think all she needs is a step stool to make it safe. But providing the step stool to allow her to use the stove for which she is not prepared would be the same mistake as providing a bike lane for those to ride on streets for which they are not prepared. Where is the conflict?


Again, where is the conflict?

patc

Serge, and this is honestly not meant as a flame/personal attack, intentional or not you frequently do insult people.

sbhikes

Subtle???!

noisebeam

Serge- You could go so much further in getting folks to see your viewpoint if you used a bit more tact. This has come up on a regular basis over the past year. Perhaps your thick skined way of dealing with bad drivers should not be applied to your forum relationships.

Al

Brian Ratliff

If the vehicular cycling principle means that the cyclist is adaptable to the situation and occasionally allows the sharing of a lane which is normally considered too narrow to be shared, then you have a point. Incidentally, a lane width vehicle (your farm vehicles, for instance) would have no choice but to drive in the lane. There is no shoulder, thus no pulling right for them.

I suppose that I don't hold with the notion that the dangers of a road are irrespective of its lane markings. Perhaps others hold my view, however, we will have to agree to disagree on this, since there is only sketchy evidence in support of either view. But your concept relies too much on cyclist education. In the absence of education, I hold that visible road facilities are better than nothing, and they do no harm for the educated. For instance, if you weren't there to teach her, and your daughter needs to cook something to eat, better she have the stool than not.

You are missing my point. You lend great importance to psychology in illustrating the disadvantages of bike lanes, but discount any psychology which illustrates advantages as merely psychology. The psychology of the much hated bike lane cuts both ways, but you only consider it when referring to the disadvantages. A perfect example of cherry picking your arguements. For instance, you discount any psychological evidence that partial segregation increases safety, giving places for moterists to look for cyclists and giving the bicycle an explicit place on the roadway, and only count the percieved psychological tendencies of drivers to think cyclists belong only in bike lanes.

Helmet Head

Why is it that I'm held up to what appears to be a higher standard than others?
Do I need to dredge up the many intentional insults that Diane has hurled at me?

Never-the-less, Al's point is well taken.

I-Like-To-Bike

There never has been anything subtle from Vehicular Cyclist Proselytizers; certainly not the insulting nature of their sermons. Recognition of it by the culprits has been lacking, that's for sure.

budster

I'll run the risk of offending and say it's because you purport to speak The Truth.

I for one will never put you down for doing that. I may not always agree with you, but I do respect your willingness to stick your neck out like that. And I have already learned a lot.

Personally, I'm more interested in Best Practices (for lack of a better term) than in strict VC. The question I always ask (implicitly) as I'm cycling is "What is the best way for me to ensure my safety on this road at this time." Often, the answer to my question is proper VC, but sometimes it's not. Because of the extreme chaotic and dynamic nature of road/traffic/weather/(et cet) interactions, I operate by few, if any, categorical rules.

Come to think of it, I do have one such rule: Live to ride another day.

I most certainly appreciate knowing the strict VC practice for any given situation and I find that the more I learn, the better my equipment becomes and the more skilled a rider I become, the more the most pragmatic approach for any given traffic situation is likely to be fully VC compliant.

That's just my opinion, supported by little more than my own experience and that fact that I've been cycling on streets and roads with cars for over a quarter century and am still here. Anyone can agree or disagree and it won't bother me much, if any. What works for me may well not work for someone else, and I won't claim otherwise.

He who would claim to speak The Truth, on the other hand, will always be held to a higher standard.

slagjumper

The squeeling brakes are a sign that they dont see you. Is there poor visability? I hope you have rear lights--guessing that you do. I deal with an area like this, but I suspect that it has 1/3 or so of the cars per km of road. It is not an issue for me, but then cars can see my rear light 1/2 mile off and have plenty of time to get into the other lane. Also in my situation it is a slight downhill over about 2 miles, so I think that cars can see the slower traffic farther off and have more of a chance to get over.

Jalopy

That wasn't the impression I got from the OP. It seemed to me that the squeeling brakes were not a visibility issue but rather the result of a ill-advised pass attempt that the driver bailed out of at the the last minute. This goes along with Brian R's suggestion that many drivers become impatient when waiting in a line behind a cyclist for several minutes and are more likely to attempt a dangerous pass.

Jalopy

Brian Ratliff

On the rural roads, I try to prevent making a moterist wait more than about 20 or 30 seconds. After about half a minute, you can be assured of having a line forming behind you. Then when you let the cars go, it is like releasing a pressure valve, with all the inherent dangers. Usually the first car in line behind me will be well behaved. It is the second, third, etc. cars which are problems. The cars behind the first car don't always know that it is a cyclist which was holding things up. Then, because they are following so closely and are impatient to pass, they end up passing very close and very fast.

The answer to this behavior is to not let a significant line form, and sometimes, vehicular lane positioning rules must be broken to accomodate this. Let a few moterists pass somewhat unsafely so to avoid having many moterists pass very unsafely.

Brian Ratliff

Oh, one other aspect of a line of cars forming is that once you have a line, letting the cars pass one by one in a controlled manner is impossible (or at least, very difficult). Again, it is like opening pressure valve. Once the first cars passes, the second, third, etc. will also try to pass regardless of whether the pass is ill advised or not. Again, the solution (and remember that this is for rural roads, our arterials almost always have bike lanes or widened outside lanes) is to keep the line from forming.

DCCommuter

I guess the thing about VC is that everyone can have their own version. Your version does not agree with mine, and I would argue that it is outside of the VC mainstream.

Here's what John Allen says in "Bicycle Street Smarts," which is one of the seminal VC works:

"If you block traffic for more than a short time, common courtesy suggests, and the law normally requires, that you pull to the side and let the traffic by when you can safely do so."

VC is not about annoying cars, it's about asserting your right to use the road. It is possible to be assertive and also courteous.

Roody

I totally agree with this. Another thing that puzzled me in Brian's post is that he seems to be implying that we are responsible for cagers' unsafe passes. I have always thought that each person is responsible only for his own behavior, not other's. Am I reading you wrong, Brian?

Dchiefransom

I think Brian is not saying that the drivers unsafe passes are our fault, but that it does put us in danger. Somebody that messes up and hits my Jeep dents a bumper. Somebody that messes up and hits me on my bike is going to dent ME. If "uncorking the valve" by giving them a time to get by is possible, then we can reduce the danger to us, from others.
I guess it's like taking the lane. Sometimes it's much safer to take the entire lane than let cars squeeze by. It's just another thing we do while riding that we calculate reduces our personal danger.

sbhikes

It's that old do you wanna be "dead right" thing. You may have every right to the lane, and whatever the heck is happening around you might not be your fault or responsibility, but sometimes ceding your right of way, or choosing a subservient or "cyclo-segretated" option is just safer. It works that way when driving too. I often pull over to let aggressive tailgaiters pass. I don't have to, their actions are not my responsibility, but I don't need the stress. Let somebody else suffer a rear-ender from that guy. Not me.