Originally Posted by Bekologist
Al, Joejack, and helmet head. excellent groupings, head. nice representatives of bike forum posters that just 'don't get it'.
Bek, I think the problem is that you don't understand right-of-way and yielding.
Yielding is
giving the right-of-way to other traffic. You have to have it before you can yield it. You can't give something that you don't have.
If you're approaching an intersection and are still so far from entering that the left-turner can safely make his left turn, then no matter what you do, you're not yielding, since you don't havethe ROW to begin with, by definition. At most, you're letting him know he already has and has had the right-of-way, but you're not yielding the right-of-way to him - because you have to have it before you can yield it.
In order to yield, you have to have the right-of-way, and then choose to slow or even stop to give it to someone else. There is no way that moving left without slowing down can constitute yielding, no matter what the situation is.
That's traffic 101.