turbo1889

Yup, you and I seem to agree on the principle of the thing an how it differs from how people actually usually use it.

I've actually had a crooked cop bent on enforcing his opinion in contradiction with the law actually try to "nip" or "tag" me on that specific thing. Although it happened while I was driving an automobile vehicle not a bicycle vehicle. I thought that the experience was relative to the conversation.

I also agree with your states law and wish my states law specifically said exactly that as well. Heck I wouldn't even mind if they flat out said you had to be going the speed limit + or - 5 mph the maximum legal speed limit, or be preparing for a left turn, or passing in order to use the left hand fast lane. That would be perfectly acceptable and reasonable in my mind.

There is such a thing as speedometer accuracy errors and the ability to hold the gas pedal in just the right spot and adjust it ever so slightly to maintain an exact speed and few people can keep the needle exactly at the speed limit mark and be confident that the speedometer is exactly accurate. Tire wear alone can make enough difference to throw off the accuracy by a single mph one way or the other in the higher highway level speed range. So I'm not one to suggest that they should give out speeding tickets to drivers going 66-mph in a 65-mph speed zone or ticket for going only 64-mph in the fast lane and not staying in the right slow lane. That's too tight of a margin to be reasonable. But anyone who has enough control over their vehicle to be considered trustworthy to drive on the public roads should be able to control their speed within 5-mph even without cruise control so I don't think there is any excuse for speeding more then that, and even then that's actually a pretty generous margin for error if one uses a + or - standard which makes the whole width of the margin on both side for using a left hand fast lane a full 10-mph wide.

Obviously, even the slowest moving vehicles such as a cyclist only going 15-mph on a roadway with a 70-mph posted speed will still occasionally need to use the left hand fast lane, usually when preparing for a left hand turn, but there are other conceivable situations as well but you don't "camp out" in the left hand fast lane on a road with multiple marked traffic lanes in the same direction of travel unless your going as fast as you can legally go, I can completely understand that and agree with it in principle.

No one though should demand, or even expect, people to have to illegally speed in order to be allowed to use the left hand fast lane. And any cop trying to enforce such a notion, or any sign suggesting such, I call "crooked" any time or place it happens. And if they ever actually make a law that says that out right, then what the heck do they even have speed limits for **********?

bshanteau

Which law are you referring to? Yes, Maryland's FRAP law has that phrase, but I was referring to the case where the lane is too narrow for a vehicle and a bicycle to travel safely side by side, which is one of the exceptions in Maryland's FRAP law.

When one of the exceptions to the FRAP law applies, then the entire FRAP law does not apply and, since bicyclists have the same rights and duties as drivers of vehicles, the "Special rule for slow-moving traffic" law (actually its Slow Vehicle Law), applies for bicyclists traveling slower than other traffic:
On a laned road, the first part of that "or" clause applies.

Are you thinking of Maryland's "Minimum speed regulation" law? It applies only to drivers of MOTOR vehicles, NOT to drivers of non-motorized vehicles or to bicyclists. Thus there is no law preventing drivers of non-motorized vehicles or bicyclists from traveling at less than the speed limit.

Gallo

+1

We do not ride in a bubble of law we ride on the road. All this about how to act in hypothetical situations with a obvious attempt to lead in the direction bicyclist should always have the right to take the lane as the Op keeps insisting.

However the letter of the law and definition of road signs gives me no comfort on the road. The current FRAP is common sense. It is how it is done in other countries. I have ridden roads in Denmark, Germany, Italy and France and in each of these countries save Germany had time with cyclists from that country as well as here in the US. There is one common denominator in each of these countries, Bicyclist stay to the right.

All of us cyclists have had strange things come up on the road and we have to use our road experience to make the choice that best suits the need for the conditions. For those that lack experience the only way to gain it is to get experience. The law helps define the rules of the road but the choices we make are often those that make the best sense when we are in it.

You must assume some risk when on a bicycle, I know I do. Piling rule opon rule leads to confusion and in my view adds more risk. I would prefer more outreach and education along with improving infrastructure for cyclists.

DX-MAN

Simply saying "stay to the right" answers nothing of the OP's question. Right LANE, right HALF OF right lane, what? (Right EDGE of the road gets a big HELL NO from me, BTW, a blatant invitation to get buzzed by impatient drivers.)

I'd rather keep it simple, like you're expressing here, and I agree -- too many rules or exceptions causes confusion. But there has to be detailed and defined rules for motorists, or they will say (as Americans often do), "There's no law against it, so I can do it, I'm a FREE MAN."

Rollfast

Having just arrived here I canoot understand why we are on page TWO.

mr645

When I see these signs in Florida, they are on multilane highways where you would never see a bike. Typically with 60+ MPH and with "No pedestrians, bikes or vehicles under 5 bhp allowed"

buzzman

These "Take the Lane" threads generally take about 5 pages or so before they magically turn into an indictment of bike lanes and paths and veer far from any connection to the original post or thread topic.

Rollfast

Sounds like a byproduct of FISSION, if you ask me.

gcottay

Yep.

Me, I take the lane when appropriate. Sometimes, strangely enough, that lane happens to be a marked bike lane.

mconlonx

This is A&S. That's why.

Chicago Al 

wphamilton

I think that is OP's point in a nutshell. All of these FRAP laws default to staying right and list exceptions to staying right, for when the cyclist is allowed to move into the lane. It's a bunch of rules and it's confusing to motorists, the few who even know all the rules. It's a mess, and it's because these FRAP laws have it backwards.

OP says, and it makes sense, the laws should default to taking the lane instead, and let the exceptions list when to get out of the way. Everyone understands that perspective because it's what we're all familiar with, with slow moving vehicles, farm equipment, wide loads and so on.

Gallo

I think this is the crux of my disagreement. I do not think the FRAP rules are difficult to understand nor confusing nor do I think his argument makes sense. I do not believe they are backwards and find this set of rules worked in my childhood and work today. I do not feel marginalized and feel that the rules are fair. I have and will take the lane when necessary and what I judge as safe given the road conditions at that time. The law reads like common sense to me and how I would conduct myself if there was no law.

And while I will get flamed for this I believe there are some roads whereby it is perfectly legal to bicycle on but I stay off because they are not safe in my opinion. I find an alternate route in such incidences. The 78 between Ramona and Dudley's Bread here in San Diego County which was part of the AMGEN TOC route is one such road. Tight and twisty narrow two lane highway with little or no shoulder and a 55 mph speed limit and allot of traffic at any give time.

I think as a cyclist always having the full right of the lane counter intuitive and would lead to confusion and friction with ultimately some tragic results especially on a road as referenced above

I still maintain effort should be made for outreach and education and there is a need for improvement in infrastructure to make the road safer for cyclists

wphamilton

You, I, and perhaps most cyclists who spend a bit of time in traffic will agree that the FRAP rules are not difficult to understand nor confusing. No argument there (although I see a lot of new cyclists even here in the forums who seem bewildered by it). But it's motorist confusion, and misunderstandings even by law enforcement, that's the issue. The motorist doesn't ride like we do, he might even think it's foolhardy, so he has no idea what makes it impracticable for a cyclist to stay over. They are not attuned to the difference in surfaces, or the orientation of a grate, or the potential of a muddy patch of leaves - they just drive over it. They don't worry as much about dangers from the roadside right as do we. Even if they know the rules, they don't know how they're applied. For traffic laws to work right, everyone has to be on the same page.

On the legal side of it, everyone from traffic patrol to magistrates have trouble with this. Time and again it's because they know where the bike's supposed to be (all the way on the right side or off the road), and everything else is a judgement call, their call, which are often vague and uninformed. Turn it around, and now the judgment applies to when you have to leave the lane, and not to when you're allowed in it. The immediate consequence is that now there are defined, concrete conditions, not just a best guess. The second is that it's harder to use vague and uninformed opinions to prove that you should have deviated from your normal traffic patterns. As it is now you have to argue his opinion vs yours about what condition caused you to deviate. If it's vague, a matter of conjecture for the judge, well you lose. But if by default you're allowed, then faced with a vague conjecture that you should have moved right, you win.

spare_wheel

Almost all states have an exception for cyclists traveling at the "normal speed of traffic". When traffic is slow (as if often the case in urban areas) cyclists have a legal right to the full lane. Moreover, 20 mph speed limits are becoming more common. Based on a reasonable interpretation of "normal speed of traffic" a 20 mph speed might be seen to invalidate FRAP entirely. I think that FRAP and mandatory sidepath laws should be contested by cyclists whenever it's not disruptive to do so. They are discriminatory laws.

genec

It's the latter part as you state that seems to cause the problems... perhaps what we need is a "reasonable cyclist standard" wherein another cyclist could be used as a credible witness to testify that yes, they too would leave the lane for similar exceptions.

Having motorists (judge, LEO, and jury) decide whether they would leave the lane for exceptions, is like asking a fox to watch the hen house.

The other part that would make current FRAP laws work is to teach them to motorists... so they learn to expect that cyclists can and will be anywhere on the road, depending on need. Since as a nation we pretty much fail to train motorists (we let them "get along" in monkey see monkey do mode), it seems that is the number one priority... I mean really what would it take to get driver training educators to emphasize that cyclists do belong... and to add one lousy question to driving tests to make this point. (what the heck there are already a bunch of lousy questions there anyway)

genec

What is the normal speed of traffic? Speed limit? Or the speed traffic is doing at that place and time?

turbo1889

Whichever is slower. That argument can be successfully made in court (at least it was by me in my local traffic court) on the basis that the state cannot use criminal behavior (speeding above the speed limit in this case) as a reasonable standard of conduct to apply to other road users.

wphamilton

Precisely. Whatever the answer is, what we have now doesn't work.

How did we get there? I got my license in the 70's, and I'm certain that dealing with bicycles was in the drivers ed curriculum. Bicycle as a vehicle, how to pass, the whole nine yards. Did we just stop teaching people how to drive between then and now?

genec

I think we did... we made cars more protective of the passengers and gave up trying to teach drivers to do the right thing... to the point that now we have to remind them of what they should know at any busy corner...


If drivers knew their responsibilities, the sign above (which I never saw anywhere in the '90s) would just be redundant... but apparently now we need to tell drivers to not hit the pedestrians... SOMETHING DRIVERS SHOULD CLEARLY KNOW!

spare_wheel

Yes.

DX-MAN

Guess you got confused by my copy & paste as part of the post you replied to; the quote you're responding to is from spivonious.

buzzman

Before we go all nostalgic about "the good old days" (I, too, started cycle commuting, racing and touring in the late 60's and early 70's) it would be prudent to look at the data:

In the late 1960's the number of persons dying in automobile accidents was hitting historic highs in the US (up around 57,000 deaths per year) at a rate of about 12 per 100 million vehicles miles travelled. Compare that to the last few years with roughly 34,000 deaths per year at a rate of about 1.2 per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. (Still not acceptable IMO).

and it's not just the fatality rate, the rate of all motor vehicle accidents was much higher in the 1960's and 70's.

If we go by the statistics people are better drivers now than they were then. And as someone who logged a ton of miles in the 1970's I would say that the drivers were, in fact, worse back then.

The big difference is numbers and congestion on the roadway. As I've pointed out in other threads we've added more than 100,000,000 people to our over all population in the US and well over 100,000,000 motor vehicles since the 1970's while not increasing the number of miles of roadway all that much.

This means we encounter more motor vehicles per mile cycled and if even only 1% of them are incompetent drivers there are just statistically more idiots out driving than ever before but they are still killing fewer of us than they were in the 1960's and 70's.

wphamilton

You may be right, but I think that improvements in safety features has a lot to do with that. Safety features including handling characteristics and braking to reduce the number of accidents, and features which reduce the severity of collisions.

Regarding the increased congestion that's a compelling point. I went looking for more definite numbers about the miles of roads historically and the improvements, thinking there has been a lot of expansions, widened roads, pavings and so on if not miles. I didn't find those numbers but I did find this https://www.publicpurpose.com/freeway1.htm making a case for more interstate miles. An excerpt that I found persuasive

"According to reports prepared for the Federal Highway Administration, the pace ofsuper-highway lane construction in urban areas over one million would have to be increasedsubstantially to stop the growth of traffic congestion. Yet, the annual cost of such would be only$3 billion--- a fraction of the peak annual construction costs incurred during the 1960s and1970s, and a 2.5 percent increase in the nation's annual surface transportation budget.

spare_wheel

Apologies...DX-MAN. Fixed.