Originally Posted by
Chaco
There's a stretch of Hwy. 101 in Leucadia(surfer town north of San Diego) that has two lanes and parking alongside the street. There is no bicycle lane at all, and the side of the road is often filled with parked cars. The lanes are big enough for two lanes of traffic, but not bikes too. Cars typically travel between 35 and 50 mph along this stretch, which lasts for about 3 or 4 miles.
If I followed the advice of this video, especially about keeping 4 feet away from parked cars to avoid dooring, I would be taking the lane. This would piss off a lot of motorists, but there's no doubt I would feel a whole lot safer. Am I doing the wrong thing by clinging to the right and hoping that no one doors me?
Well, I wouldn't say there's a clear-cut right or wrong thing to do...especially without seeing the situation first-hand. It's good that you know you're facing a tradeoff: you would be in less danger taking the lane, but you might inconvenience others. (A lot of riders seem to think that in that sort of situation, the safest thing to do is to keep as far right as possible...which is usually flat-out wrong.) I'm not trying to make that a sarcastic, "the-answer-is-obvious-once-you-phrase-it-that-way" point; often I will accept a slight additional danger if it makes someone else's travel significantly easier. The question is where you strike the balance.
From the way you describe that stretch of road, I would advise taking the lane, and letting motorists change lanes to pass. In heavier traffic, I would temporarily move right from time to time, to allow someone to pass when they can't easily get into the left lane. If ambient traffic
really needed both lanes, and there would be a full-fledged traffic jam if I took the right lane, then I might stay in the door zone, and ride slowly enough to mitigate the danger of dooring somewhat...with the full understanding that I was doing this as a favor to other travelers, not for my own safety.
(And if you decide to stay out of the door zone, and traffic backs up as a result, you're not the cause of the jam. Lousy road design is the cause; you're just refusing to risk your own neck to mask the symptoms of that bad design. Unless, of course, you're the highway engineer that designed that road, in which case, try to do a better job next time.)