Vehicular Cycling (VC) - Bike lane advocates only:

...One can read the "forward thinking" CALTRANS master plan at http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/survey/pedestrian/TR_MAY0405.pdf

It makes me want to cry, this is the kind of document that shows what direction we're going in in the very first sentence. Whereas once cyclists had all the rights and responsibilities of all road users, now we're being relegated to the "non-motorists", on the same charts as pedestrians and wheelchairs, what a bloody crying shame.

I am NOT A PEDESTRIAN OR A WHEELCHAIR, I AM A VEHICLE darn it! I always have been, and wish keep that privilege, because what a privilege it is, and I will fight for that privilege!

My biggest issue is the drivers who turn in front of me at intersections, when I am simply going straight. This I don't have any direct control over and is the most difficult to predict accurately and difficult to evade effectively.

Well, individual tastes. I've had a couple of people turn in front of me, with the result being that I bounce off of them. On the two occasions that this has happened to me, I did not fall in either.


Faster same direction traffic is far easier to predict and a bit easier to evade if ones predictions are off. I disagree that it is difficult to watch each and every faster vehicle in the same lane - with a mirror it is a near automatic observation.
I disagree. A constant stream of traffic means your attention is constantly behind you, which is bad considering the direction you are travelling. A moment's inattention on the driver's part can result in a car drifting into you, and even if you were paying close attention at that exact moment, at a 30-50 mph closing speed you don't have muuch time at all to do anything about it. And depending upon circumstance, there may not be options available to you anyway. The most effective answer I can see is to allow cyclists space to ride as far away from that traffic as possible.