Originally Posted by
RobertHurst
To the whole passing distance thing Forester just said "So What?" That's not the reason for taking the lane. And none of that other stuff you mentioned, neither. The reason for taking the lane, says Forester, is to prevent "incipient collision situations" between motorists traveling in opposite directions "which may involve the cyclist."
This I found interesting for a few reasons: (1) This "incipient collision situation" seems to be one of the most unlikely sorts of car-bike wrecks imagineable, which doesn't really register in any way in available evidence, and (2) Forester is always talking about "fear from the rear" and how the unwashed masses are so unjustifiably fearful of being run down from behind. Well, this is clearly another sort of "fear from the rear," but one which has far less basis in actual evidence than the "fear from the rear" which he has spent decades trying to debunk. Very interesting isn't it?
To me it seems like the VC-ists' justifications for their Father Knows Best lane-taking style unravel spectacularly with the slightest tug.
The only thing that is clear to me is that I'm particularly dense inside this thread. Maybe somebody snuck decaf into my coffee. I've tried guessing what John means by incipient collision situations as it pertains to motor vehicles passing from behind, but it doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere.
Originally Posted by
RobertHurst
I wasn't really trying to compare anything. Just pointing out that JF's assertion, that "incipient collision situations" caused by a cyclist failing to take a lane are a "major traffic problem for cyclists," doesn't jibe with any available evidence. It's simply fantasy, made up BS. So you can compare it to any problem that cyclists actually deal with in traffic.
But sure, let's compare those two. Of course there is some slop, but the frequency of recorded failure-to-notice hits-from-behind is an order of magnitude greater than the recorded frequency of failed passes in multiple large studies. Furthermore, the hit-from-behind is responsible for around 25% of cyclist fatalities -- by far the most deadly sort of collision that a cyclist can suffer. The "incipient collision situation" described by Forester would seem to be responsible for around 0% of cyclist fatalities. That's not slop. That's reality.
I expect the errors here to be systematic with hit-from-behind and failed passes. For instance, if a car is accelerating to pass and the cyclist swerves in front of the driver -- whether claimed or real -- is it recorded as a hit-from-behind or failed-pass? Moreover, the categories that one chooses is wildly important for these discusses regarding what is most important.