Originally Posted by
chaadster
I do wonder how a court would see this issue of yielding. Requiring vehicles to yield is distinct from giving the cyclist right of way, and given that van was ahead of you and had initiated the turn, I'm inclined to say that it had the right of way, and that you, the cyclist, were obliged not to hit it.
I think it's pretty simple really. Instead of "bike lane", substitute "oncoming lane" and instead of "white line" substitute "double yellow". In the case of a driver turning left across a double yellow line, they must yield to oncoming traffic. That's an absolute and if the person making the left is hit by oncoming traffic, it is the fault of the driver turning left since they did not yield the right of way.
Why would the same wording for yielding to bikes in the bike lane when turning across the bike lane be any different to yielding to oncoming traffic when turning across the oncoming lane? It would not.
But sadly my noob-ness around here has made me naive and apparently people get jollies out of blaming people who post incidents. So be it, blame me for not anticipating bad driver behavior but no one has pointing out where I broke any laws or regulations regarding biking in Washington state.
If anyone else has any constructive comments, I'll respond but other than that I'm done too.