Thread: What is VC?
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Old 09-17-06 | 06:08 PM
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sbhikes
Dominatrikes
 
Joined: Oct 2004
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From: Still in Santa Barbara

Bikes: Catrike Pocket, Lightning Thunderbold recumbent, Trek 3000 MTB.

What is VC?

Somebody posted this:
What is VC?
VC stands for Vehicular Cycling and can be summed up as:
Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles
There is much debate around here about what "act as drivers of vehicles" means and whether or not being "treated as drivers of vehicles" is something worth enforcing by law or leaving to cyclists to try and elicit from drivers with various behaviors.

Many here believe that "acting as drivers of vehicles" means eschewing bike lanes, even good bike lanes. Many others here believe that bike lanes are just traffic lanes like any other, and that the use of bike lanes is included in those practices that make someone a vehicular cyclist. But being pro- or anti-bike lane is not vehicular cycling.

I think most of us would agree that "vehicular cyclist" means we follow the rules of the road. It includes at the minimum that we ride in the street, not the sidewalk, travel in the same direction as other traffic, use destination positioning, use hand signals and use whatever other equipment (lights, bells or whatever) are required by law.

I think most of the arguing comes down to this: We disagree on what it means to act as drivers of vehicles and we disagree on how much responsibility drivers of motor vehicles have to treat us as drivers of vehicles. Secondarily we disagree on what constitutes "the street" or "the roadway" and what consitutes "defensive" driving. Otherwise, among those of us who argue the most, we are all vehicular cyclists.
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