Advocacy & Safety - Why don't cyclist's know the road rules!

Last night I was riding through the city and I passed a guy ~500meters from a major intersection. We were both in the far left lane. As I neared the intersection I had to cross over two lanes to get onto the road I wanted. As I sat there in the left lane of the intersection, which is normally only used by buses, I noticed the guy I had passed sitting 3 lanes further over near the median strip. I looked at him dumbfounded for a while as all the traffic started to line up behind him. I realised he was clearly in the wrong place, as the road has no other streets for the next mile, so he couldn't be thinking of turning off anytime soon. I asked him if he was heading in the same direction as me, and he said yes. I replied with "you better look out for those guys" pointing to all the traffic. He looked back over his shoulder, and realised he was in the wrong place, but it was too late as the lights were about to go green. They turned green and I watched for a few seconds as he tried to get across 3 lanes of city traffic, he wasn't having any luck. I thought for sure he was going to get creamed so I took off and didn't look back, that's the last thing need to see, some moron getting run over. What I want to know is why didn't he fall in behind me at the lights, if he didn't know the rules, surely he would follow someone else's example.

CHEERS.

Mark

Here is a pic to make things clearer. We ride on the left. There are other roads to the left and right but I have left them out to keep it simple.

it gives a bad rep to cyclists, when people do things like that. Although we all make mistakes, we really need to be careful of the rules of the road. :rolleyes:

I think bike stores should give out "road rules" sheets to everyone who buys a bike. That seems to be the easiest place to do it. It's up to the rider whether they want to read it and follow it, but at least they had access to it. When I first started riding, I didn't even know where to start. I think that's the situation most people are in. They just do what works. And sometimes breaking all the rules works fine for a long time. Other times they in the emergency room with a crushed foot, wondering what they did wrong. After my accident, I went on a crash course in proper bicycle riding. Hopefully other people can be reached before they get to that point.

andy

I like your drawing. What graphics program did you use?

I would do an "other guy" maneuver if and only if I were preparing for an upcoming far-side turn (right for you, left for me). Otherwise, I do not understand what he was thinking.

Maybe he was an american, or somebody else used to riding on the right.

I thought he may have been turning further down the road but I realised there are no turns for some distance, that's when I started to worry about this guy. He wasn't young either, ~30yo.

The drawing was done in Adobe Photoshop 5.5.

CHEERS.

Mark