Originally Posted by
wphamilton
Glad to give you an opportunity to present your case
I wasn't intending to argue that the law somehow supported lane splitting but I can see how ambiguous it was. I differentiate between lane splitting vs lane sharing while riding FRAP. While the latter may technically be "lane splitting", and 158 prohibits passing on the right by drivers of vehicles, I don't see how that can be applied in practice to bicycles passing vehicles on the right side when riding FRAP. Otherwise there would be no lane sharing by bicycles, no? You wouldn't even be able to ride past a line of stopped cars with even 6 feet of clearance, unless there was a delineated lane there. So I'd suspect that in this particular case, drivers of vehicles would be construed as motor vehicles.
Happy to oblige! The way I read the statute as being intended (note, I'm not in any way legally qualified), bicycles are full-on vehicles, entitled to a space in the lane like any other. The Act requires that cyclists travel in the right portion of their lane as much as practicable, but if another vehicle wishes to overtake me, by the Act they're required to signal their intention, and perform a partial or full lane-change manoeuvre to do so. Once they have done so, I can only overtake them on the left, and by the same process: signalling, and proceeding around their vehicle when safe. So if a vehicle passes me and then comes to a stop behind a line of traffic stopped at a light, I'm obliged to either hold my position in the lane behind them, or if possible safely overtake them on the left - but I can't then worm my way back into the right-hand lane at the stop line. If I want to proceed in either lane, I need a full lane-width space in which to do so. This does mean that traffic passes me and stays ahead of me, which I don't prefer, but that's the way it is if I have to ride in a non-bike lane, so that's how I ride. Where possible, I choose routes that have bike lanes, solving the whole problem outright.