Originally Posted by
pdlamb
First, I'm surprised to be reading this from a Queens commuter. I expected traffic there to be like it was in Brooklyn and Manhattan -- 3-5 lanes full of traffic dashing from one red light to the next. I'm going to have to stop next time I'm through there to watch miles of traffic sitting in the right lane because someone might be coming up faster behind them.
To answer your question, the vehicles I passed were stopped, then accelerating from stopped. I hit about 20 mph before the last vehicle in the right lane (the guy I called "slowpoke
#2 ") passed me.
To answer some other questions you might have asked before starting the lecture, it's a 35 zone. I was the last vehicle through the light in the left lane. After the last vehicle in the right lane passed me, I moved right and was passed by 3-4 more vehicles that turned onto the boulevard I was riding. I caught up to the entire pack at the next light, so while I
might have slowed traffic in the left lane (had there been any), I didn't
delay anyone.
Finally, if you're really a bike commuter, there's a far greater chance (just looking at demographics) that I could have taught you to drive than that you're old enough to have taught me when I was learning to drive.
Was there anything else you feel qualified to nag me about?
Queens isn't really any different to Brooklyn, although I would say Manhattan has some unique characteristics and traffic patterns. In any case, there was a pretty big 'should' in my statement. As wphamilton confirmed, these are indeed the rules of the road in most locations, but here in NY (and most other places I have observed in the US), these rules are not strictly enforced and generally unknown to most drivers. Traffic was always chaotic in the city, and now with the plague of Uber drivers everywhere, the situation has only gotten worse. I never thought it was possible to make the cabbies seem reasonable, until the Uber crowd showed up...
Anyway, it wasn't meant to be a nag or anything like that. The situation wasn't completely clear, so I was only commenting on slow cars keeping to, and thus lining up in, the right lane, and how that actually sounds rather refreshing. Your actions, as described, sound perfectly reasonable given the situation.