Originally Posted by Laika
I know there's a temptation to claim NY exceptionlism about this but I'd be interested to hear how many intersections you guys feel like you have to negotiate or otherwise actively manage on any given ride. I was surprised at how little effort I spent doing so. My trickiest and most demanding negotiation in traffic today was a 3.5-lane, left to right merge from the left-side situated striped bike lane on Hudson to the extreme right traffic lane, and even that wasn't so bad (habitually traffic is dense and slow moving so it's easy to carve out space for yourself, provided the cabdrivers aren't feeling frisky.
Negotiating at an intersection and trying to read motorists actions are completely seperate things. I negotiated a lane change near an intersection about 8 times today I'd say. There's a few spots on the way in and on the way home where I'll use the shoulder for a short bit but it turns into a right turn only lane or goes by an intersection that I want to avoid being far right at so I negotiate my way into the traffic lanes. I also make a left turn to get onto the street where I work which requires negotiating into the left lane from the right lane to get into the left turn lane. I have two left turns on the way home that require merging across at least one lane, sometimes two at the one intersection (road open into three lanes shortly before I make my left and sometimes I'll just stay in the middle lane if traffic is moving slowly enough or the light before my light is red). I don't consider these negotiations dangerous at all but they were something I would have never tried as an inexperienced cyclist (gotta stay out of the way of cars after all).
In terms of reading motorists, I only did a slight bit of this on the way in while passing by a few minor intersections on an uphill stretch of my commute into work. I use the shoulder going by some residential driveways when traffic is heavy and fast and I'm moving pretty slow (~10mph). I have a clear view of the driveways so I know there is basically no threat of traffic entering the roadway so all I need to do is to look for someone possibly slowing to turn right. Going uphill, I can slow down a lot faster plus I'm moving quite slowly (unlike the example in my other thread where I'm moving at 2-2.5X times my uphill speed).
As I've stated in my other thread, I do consider trying to read high speed motorists while cycling at relatively high speeds to be a dangerous thing. In the situations where I've tried it, there's usually too much going on for me to pay enough attention to everything I think I should be paying attention to. Moving out into the right hand lane eliminates a large portion of what I need to be watching for.
Does this answer your question at all? I tried to stay on topic but not sure if I did or not.