1nterceptor

"Robert Lewis, aged 56, was seeking to overtake a recumbent bike ridden by YouTube user CyclingMikey as the pair headed along Bromley Common on Thursday 20 March. As the video shows, with a pedestrian island ahead on the road creating a pinch point, the cyclist gestured to the motorist to hold back until it was safe to overtake. But the motorist seems to have misinterpreted it as a signal to overtake, and afterwards there was an exchange in which he told CyclingMikey that he should be on the cycle path on the adjacent footway."

Read the full article: Video: Motorist speaks of "upset" after helmet camera footage of bad driving posted to YouTube | road.cc

walrus1

Ok, for my first point I know I'm going to take some flak but I'm sure since this is A&S we can all stay civil. I'm not sure why he the cyclist was out of the bike lane. It looked safe, free of obstructions and well maintained. I'd love to see lanes like that in NYC. He saw that he was obstructing the path of fellow road users yet refused to merge over. He shares a lot of the blame here. For christ sakes the ******* doesn't even merge over for the mother flipping ambulance with lights and sirens going! Which by the way is his legal obligation. I want to smack him! He put himself willing in a position where he was going to piss off a lot of people. I almost wonder if he was just trying to rack up views.

Secondly that driver should be aware he has no privacy on the public open road. Don't want your aggressive driving up on youtube? Don't drive aggressively.

spivonious

Cyclists are not mandated to use the cycling path. Personally, I wouldn't want a cyclist traveling as fast as the one in the video on the sidewalk with pedestrians.

And he clearly does pull over to the side and stop when the ambulance comes up behind him.

walrus1

Just because he is not wrong doesn't mean he is not an *******. In America you're supposed to clear the lane for emergency vehicles with lights and sirens going if your able to do so.

Never meant to imply that anyone here is anything other than a decent person.

mr_bill

? He pulls right (well, left) to the edge of the lane.

Take another look at the video and that "bike lane":
0:03
0:11
0:15
0:22
0:24 (my favorite, a bus stop shelter in the "bike lane")
0:32
0:43
0:46
0:52
1:04
1:20 ("bike lane" ends)

I wouldn't ride there either.

-mr. bill

spare_wheel

To quote from the article:

Mandatory sidepath laws in the usa suck.

walrus1

@mr.bill he clearly moves over by fails to clear the lane.
@spare_wheel yes, mandatory laws suck but a little courtesy goes a long way to make our roads friendlier and safer.

genec

Then just why is it that so many motorists fail to display such courtesy?

walrus1

Some people will always be rude, some people will become less rude over time. However purposely antagonizing them does nothing to serve our interests.

B. Carfree

Is failing to use an unsafe bike lane/side path somehow a provocative action? What next? Must we choose our routes so as to stay completely off of roadways that don't have these features and forego working at/shopping at/visiting any places that are on such roadways?

walrus1

There was absolutely nothing, that I could see, wrong with that bike lane. It was free and clear of obstructions. You was fully aware traffic was backing up behind him yet insisted on letting it back up behind him. The rest of your questions are hyperbole as you know that many cyclists, myself included, frequent roads without bike lanes. If we insist on being in traffic then we have the obligation to ensure we do our fair bit to keep it flowing.

B. Carfree

I would say that "doing our fair bit to keep it flowing" is as simple as riding to the best of our ability. I don't get my knickers in a twist over the motorists who hold me up when I'm on my bike (they cause me much more delay than I cause to them) since they're just traffic. So is a cyclist. Further, since the real speed difference is only peak speeds, not lifetime-of-vehicle averages, much of the perceived delay of motorists by cyclists is illusory. (Motor vehicles average about 24 mph over their lifetimes; faster, but not by much, than cyclists.)

You seem to feel that "doing our fair bit" means staying out of the way of motorists. I was just wondering how far you take this.

walrus1

@B. Carfree I take this as far as getting out of the middle of the lane as soon as they can safely pass me and keeping to bike lanes/sharrows when they are safe and clear of obstructions.

SKunKWerKs

I see nothing wrong with the way he was riding. That "bike path" was more of a sidewalk and had a few obstructions even in that short clip.

walrus1

Compared to a NYC bike lane that one is heaven.

B. Carfree

Well, clearly the definition of what constitutes a bike lane or sidepath that is safe and free of obstructions seems to vary. (A sharrow is neither of these. It is a lane that is formally marked as too narrow for a motorist to pass a cyclist without changing lanes.)

Personally, I will hold the lane as long as it is too narrow for a motorist to safely and legally pass me while staying entirely within the lane. That said, I'm happy to use a safe pullout, formally marked or not, to facilitate overtaking traffic and I enjoy riding on paved shoulders, as long as they are relatively free of debris and defects. (My state mandates that ride-able shoulders be resurfaced with pavement, not chip-seal. It's a nice policy that is all too often ignored by county officials.)

I suspect we are riding somewhat similarly, except that you will ride in more bike lanes/side paths that I find hazardous. That could have to do with a difference in the speeds at which we ride or with the habits of the motorists we encounter.

mr_bill

Excuse me?

There is literally a bus stop shelter in the middle of the "bike path." There is a tree, even on a bent, that is in the "bike path."

-mr. bill

genec

If we go with the issue of "backing up traffic" then we should exclude many motorists from the roadways as traffic backs up quite often simply due to the sheer number of single occupancy cars on the roadway.... and such backups occur far more often than the rare slowdown by cyclist... in fact, we have even given a name to the traffic backup caused by motorists... "rush hour;" this event generally occurs twice a day, and is largely caused by motorists.

walrus1

@mr_bill thats two obstructions. That is really nothing.

keyven

True, but it IS a bike path nonetheless. Most drivers aren't going to take note of all these obstructions, no more than cyclists are going to take much note of obstructions on the walking path.

Probably in 95% of situations the driver should be more patient, but how would you feel if you were a driver and were stuck behind a cyclist when you're rushing to an emergency? It's not often, but it happens.

kickstart

Neither fulfilled their obligations to share the road safely, and respectfully. Both could have prevented the entire conflict, the driver failed to wait to make a safe pass, the cyclist attempted to force his will on another. Both had the opportunity to do the right thing and defuse the situation, yet both chose escalate the situation by being confrontational.

Six jours

And so walrus1 becomes the latest poster to realize that on A&S, no bike path is ever good enough, no cyclist is ever in the wrong, and no driver ever has any defense.

I do have to note one new twist, however: the argument that somewhere out there is at least one motorist who is not always perfectly polite, so all cyclists are justified in being complete A-holes to every other road user. Good times.

Chris516

A person's right to privacy is subjective. Not every state in the U.S. is a one/two-party state.

Six jours

Never mind that this all took place in London...

Six jours

Oh, and a couple of interesting points from the article...

From the driver: "I think he does normal cyclists a disservice by not using the cycle lanes for safety reasons, but happily using them if traffic impedes his progress,"

This is a common theme with the VC crowd - they want all the advantages of "vehicularity" but seem perfectly happy to run stop lights, ride on sidewalks, and generally do anything they want in the name of convenience. Meanwhile, motorists are expected to go above and beyond (way, way beyond, in many cases) their legal and moral obligations if they are to avoid being labeled "jackasses" and worse by the usual crowd here.

And from a commentator:

"Cyclingmikey has far too many videos on his youtube channel, it's almost like he wants the confrontation (I ride in London daily and don't have half as many confrontations as him)."

This sums up the whole "movement" as far as I am concerned. There seems to be a subset of humans who are not happy unless they are manufacturing indignant and self-righteous drama. And some of that subset rides bicycles. I wonder if any of them would continue to do so if they didn't have helmet cams and the internet. I strongly suspect that they would find merely riding around without incident far too uninteresting to hold their attention.