acidfast7

the bike lane usually continues through intersections on the street ... like this from my morning ride ... the narrow double dashed lines are the bike lane ... also in the immediate foreground attached to the light pole is the "only on green, kids are watching" sign.

it should be pretty easy as there's not so many lines on the street, eh?

locolobo13 

Yeah. Lotta lines.

Here's my worst. There's plenty of room in the right lane on this side to share the lane. But there is no room to share on the other side. I had to learn to take the middle of that right lane to safely negotiate this intersection in this direction. Still not bad once you figure it out.

PatrickGSR94

That's really common around the Memphis area where bike lanes are being retrofitted onto roads all over the city. Typically there will be 2 or 4 lanes, plus bike lanes. But at intersections a left turn lane pops up so the travel lanes have to shift to the sides, making the bike lane go away. Or the other way might be 2 lanes plus center turn lane, and bike lanes, and then at intersections they put right turn only lanes for cars which supersedes the bike lanes. Those are the worse offending areas for right hooks IMHO. Very important to take the lane there.

I wish Memphis would implement the "bike box" design that requires cars to stop farther back in the right-hand lane. But since right turn on red is allowed almost everywhere, and most people (including myself) do it, it's probably never going to happen.

ItsJustMe

The presence or absence of a bike lane does not make a cyclist who is riding in a normal lane wrong, unless the state has a mandatory sidepath law, and even then, if the cyclist was preparing to turn left and had been switching lanes to do so, he'd doing nothing at all wrong here.

acidfast7

in Germany, it's illegal to ride in the street when a non-integrated bike-lane is provided

dynaryder

Even if he had braked,the truck still prolly would've taken out his front wheel. The rider didn't think the driver was trying to take him out,so he just tried to move out of the way.

This event is local(Wash DC),so it's been discussed on the local blogs and I've seen the whole video. The cyclist took the lane from a light because there were parked cars ahead. The pickup driver(John W. Diehl,a retired DC cop) took offense,despite the fact that he had an empty lane and could've passed the bike like it was a car. He yelled at the cyclist,who kept his cool(didn't cuss or threaten) and then turned across his bow as seen in the NBC clip. The cyclist was vehicular cycling,rather than weaving in and out of parked cars(which BTW is one of the warning stickers on the DC bike-share bikes).

This incident has been a sore spot to the local cycling community because of foot-dragging by the authorities to find the suspect and bring charges due to the fact that he's a retired police officer.

PatrickGSR94

Can you share a link to the whole video?

CB HI

It is on You-tube, DC news and an older BF thread. Have fun.

Copy, paste and google "John W. Diehl" took 15 seconds to find recent articles with video.

Fantasminha

My husband and I were almost hit by a taxi (first) then a Garda car right after. I think the Guard wanted to ticket me until he saw the helmet cam - there was no other reason for the absurd discussion that happend after he stopped. We were in a shared bike/bus lane and here's the Garda trying to convince us that the taxi had right of way! The bike advocates in Dublin used our vídeo to complain to the council and have some laws updated and additional education for the Guards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqgCol8xhuI&feature=plcp

acidfast7

I didn't think that was so close. You guys had at least 1 meter. Perhaps we are used to riding closer to cars in Frankfurt as the traffic is much more dense than that (it looks totally wide open in your video) and people often park in the street (especially during commuting hours) forcing the bikes and cars all into a single (from two + a dedicated bike lane.)

tergal

might find that the car was closer than they appeared, remember cameras do some strange things with depth/angle of vision

Fantasminha

Exactly right. My helmet cam has a wierd kind of fisheye distortion. The taxi was actually close enough that I could have touched it and the Garda car was even closer than that.

yep202

Save up and get one.

acidfast7

That's not so bad.

At some points on my commute, I have parked cars about 30cm (1 foot) to my right and people passing at 50kph (30mph) about 30-45cm (1-1.5 ft) to my left. You get used to it. I wouldn't have even wasted the time to stop.

dynaryder

^^^YMMV,but in DC/VA/MD,passing that close would be illegal. Also,in this area,passing that close to a cyclist is often due to aggressive and/or inattentive driving. WABA/DDOT go to lengths to educate drivers;I do the same when I get buzzed.

PatrickGSR94

I think pretty much everywhere in the US that has any sort of laws pertaining to bikes, they say at least 3 feet clearance is the law when passing a cyclist.

curbtender

Wow, wasn't safe as soon as the rider was accosted. People go to theaters and kill groups just because. Why engage? I guess it must have been Nat/Geo worthy. If I brought that video home and showed my wife she would have slapped me to the back of my head...

linus

Fantasminha

I'm not sure if you're addressing me or the OP, but in my case we were being pulled over by the police. I would guess that ignoring them would be against the law, even in Ireland.