Well there's situations on the street all the time where even being in a car is dangerous because of blind intersections, poorly designed traffic patterns,and the topography involved, just the way it is, and often times being on a bike in one of those places and acting like a vehicle will put you in danger. Just the fact that a bike rider isnt always as easily seen by motorists in situations like that is enough to add alot to the risk involved.Bottom line, people do stupid things, both bikers and cars, like I said above, experience is the best teacher on both sides of the issue.Sometimes you have to break the law in order to get thru a situation, knowing when that is isnt something that can be taught, it has to be learned.Alot of it is plain old fashioned experience of knowing the area where you ride.
Locally for example in the south end of downtown there are some intersections that have traffic lights that are activated by the presence of cars, but will not be tripped by a bike rider, but also and more importantly, the streets are quite narrow and if one follows the rules of the road as a biker and gets in the left turn lane and waits you expose yourself to being hit when a car makes a turn onto the street where your waiting because drivers have to swing wide around the turn to avoid the curb and come into the turn lane a bit and they arent likely to see you until its too late.They also often almost hit cars sitting there waiting to turn, just a bad situation all the way around, so as a maneuverable biker, why put yourself in danger in that case?Just to be riding VC, gimme a break.
Here's another case, behind our county courthouse on front street, there's parallel parking along the buildings on both sides, which causes drivers to drive in the number 2 lane and 4 lanes plus parking garage exits/entrances, but more often than not, they will be making a right hand turn onto mound street from the the number 2 lane.They arent any "turning" lanes there, its a 5 lane one way, and you can go left or right onto mound street.Now, also more often than not, most folks dont signal, they just turn, and if your following the rules of the road and staying to the right, you risk getting pinched or hit by cars doing this.Its an easily avoidable situation, but its just another case where sometimes you have to blow off the strict interpretation of the law and act accordingly whether you have the ROW or not, survivial is the key.Many of these cases are nothing more than driver ignorance and bad habits, but survival on the street as a biker understanding how to deal with it is part of that isnt it?
like I said, you can be right, and still be dead