Before we go any further in this thread, I'd like to thank everyone who has responded so far to my original message.
This is turning out to be a learning experience which will benefit me as a cyclist as much as the "accosted driver."
Originally Posted by Roody
To the cyclist: I hate to say this, but cager right, rider wrong. I agree with others who said the cyclist should have hung back if multiple passing was getting him nowhere. He was just trying to ride faster than the flow of traffic allowed. You can't profit from doing that--bike or car. It will just get you into unnecessary confrontations at best, accidents at worst.
If I am going faster than the average speed of traffic, I will slow a bit, take the center of the outer lane and hold it. If I want to pass on a slow crowded street, I will use the inner lane to overtake, just like a car would. When I am going the same speed as the cars, I will "drive" my bike just as I would drive a car.
Putting on my cyclist helmet for a moment (which the offending rider was NOT wearing), I can only partially agree with the above.
I can think of situations when what you're suggesting above would work just fine.
However, if it's rush hour or a traffic situation that mimics rush hour, all bets are off about trying to match the prevailing speed of traffic if I can use adequate space between a line of halted cars in the traffic lane and parked cars on the curb. There are numerous arterial routes where I see this routinely occurring in very heavy traffic. And it doesn't seem to be a wrong or unsafe thing for the cyclist to be doing. If I were on my bike, that's what I'd do.
I can't believe that cyclists here are actually going to take the lane if the traffic speed is at or below 5 mph. Although my situation was in midday traffic, the slowdown caused by a merge of two lanes into one was responsible for the slower speed. As a cyclist, I don't think there was anything wrong with his trying to maintain his steady speed if he's able to do so without endangering himself or conflicting with traffic.
Remember, this was a FOUR-LANE arterial. You're not going to use the inner lane to overtake in bumper-to-bumper traffic if both lanes are moving slower than you. To my notion as a cyclist, staying in the area between traffic lanes and the cars at the curb is preferable.
To L& AP: It sounds like you are a very courteous driver. Do you sometimes wonder if it's possible to be too courteous? Sometimes overly polite drivers slow down traffic for everybody. In this case, you slowed down to let others merge ahead of you at a lane closure. You might have been gumming up the works. This can slow everybody done more than necessary. What do you think?
It was a slow-to-a-crawl, pick-up-some-speed, slow-to-a-crawl kind of situation. Near the merge, I slowed further to allow ONE CAR to slip into the lane in front of me. I'd say that's pretty inconsequential in this situation.