Originally Posted by
Bekologist
one needs look no further than the originator of that photo, Keri Caffery and her blog for the explanation.... it's tragic that such aggrandizing road behavior as pictured in the above photo prompted state legislators to censure bicyclists with a MBL law, but its very clear the riders most outspoken about their lane position were directly responsible for the legal censure.
It's apparantly a morass of their own devising. its a shame aggrandizing club cyclists have made quite the mess for the rest of florida cyclists.
Keri Caffery's blog on why florida cyclists got the MBL law
I read Caffery's Commute Orlando article 'why-were-facing-a-mandatory-bike-lane-law' though I didn't read the transcript of the Florida Legislator being interviewed. I take it that Florida's bike lane law was a legislative action and not a vote put before the public. A possible common problem, is that many people living in states with bike lanes and bike lane laws may not particularly understand the type of need people traveling by bike have for bike lanes, or circumstances under which bike lanes are usable and not usable for bike travel. The general public might understand these things better if circumstances associated with bike lane use were presented over a period of months leading up to an election, rather than simply handing that thinking process and decision over to the legislators.
Re; photo of the group of cyclists in my earlier post: traffic situation shown in the scene depicted does not seem particularly similar to that referred to by a lawmaker as quoted in an interview excerpt included in the Keri Caffery blog article: "... “along A1A they were having some challenges with cyclists who were choosing not to ride in that lane and causing backups and traffic. ...".
As seen in the photo, there's two lanes of same direction travel, plus a road shoulder, and traffic is light with just a few motor vehicles visible in the entire picture. There is no traffic backed up. In that kind of situation, if traffic were backed up, assuming the shoulder was as clean and hazard free as that seen in the picture, the logical and reasonable thing for the group of people on bikes to do would probably be to fall into single file and either ride the space on the road between solid white line and curb, or barring this, far right as possible.
Out here in Oregon, it's not uncommon to hear comments from people expressing their not understanding why someone riding a bike on the road wouldn't be riding in the bike lane when one may be right next to where they're riding. I don't think their lack of understanding is necessarily resentment of bike's presence on the road. Rather, it's just a simple result of their not understanding the conditions required for riding and also, different types of riding.