Originally Posted by joejack951
You guys are incredible. I find it hard to believe that you have all actually read what is being written, understood it, then typed your response. It seems like most of you have cherry picked comments (SSP being the worst offender here, constantly referring to weaving back and forth across the bike lane line) and then responded to them as if that's all that was said.
HH has brought much of this upon himself...his writing style is strident, repetitive (in the extreme), and condescending (constantly complaining that the rest of us just "don't understand").
And now, even noted cycling authorities like Robert Hurst are chiming in to take him to task for his baseless claims.
Originally Posted by joejack951
If you take a look at the bike lane deaths thread, you will see plenty of examples of motorists choosing to take their attention off the road to attend to a distraction and drifting into the bike lane/shoulder into a cyclist. Whether these motorists were drunk or just stupid is irrelevant. They made it down the road as far as they did because they were paying enough attention to stay on the road. If they had that much attention to give to the road in front of them, doesn't it make sense that they would also notice a cyclist up ahead in their path?
Most of us are also drivers, and know from that experience that observing a cyclist up ahead is a common occurrence...and it seems to happen without problem regardless of whether the cyclist is in the roadway or on the shoulder. When was the last time you were "surprised" by the "sudden presence" of a cyclist on the shoulder of a straight, ruralish road?
Originally Posted by joejack951
Doesn't the fact that motorists rear ending cyclists on narrow roads, where the cyclist HAS to be in the path of motorist, is such a rare occasion, yet we have heard about plenty of collisions occuring where the cyclist was not in the intended path of the motorist (see the tragedy in Solana beach thread for a recent one) mean anything to anybody?
As has been noted, you have no evidence on which to base your claims that "in the roadway" accidents are less common than "on the shoulder" accidents. It's entirely feasible, for instance, that for some "on the shoulder" accidents it was the
cyclist who was attending to a distraction and strayed out of the bike lane.
AFAIK, there are no studies showing that one or the other of those two scenarios is more common.
Originally Posted by joejack951
And one last time, the whole point of eschewing bike lanes/shoulders in the first place is to avoid all of the collisions that so often happen to cyclists, like right and left hooks, or close passes where the cyclist gets clipped. Avoiding the evil drift is a side benefit that you get for no extra effort over what you'd be doing on any road with many intersections (riding in a centerish position in the lane, monitoring to the rear periodically, and moving right when safe and reasonable).
Nobody is advocating that bikes should always be in the bike lane...lord knows I get out of them whenever it's in my best interest to do so. It's the idea that I should eschew a perfectly good bike lane on a ruralish road that is at dispute.
Originally Posted by joejack951
What makes this concept so hard to understand?
Stridency, repetitiveness, and condescension don't help.
Lack of evidence, and assumptions about driver behavior that are inconsistent with personal experience don't help either.
Finally, the fact that noted cycling authorities are weighing in and challenging the position...well, that pretty much seals the deal (for me, anyway...YMMV).