Originally Posted by Roody
You seem to be contradicting yourself. You are always saying "take the lane." Now you are saying, "Position yourself in the left part of the lane so that cars behind you can conveniently use most of YOUR lane to turn right." I do not feel comfortable letting a car come within inches of me--passing on my RIGHT when another car may be inches from me on my LEFT--just so he can make a quick right turn and not miss the beginning of his favorite TV show. I do not want to be the middle of a Roody Sandwich!
Moi? Contradict myself? C'est impossible!
By
always in "You are
always saying 'take the lane'" surely you do not literally mean "always" - I assume you are referring to how often I advocate taking the lane in my posts. To be clear, I do advocate "taking the lane" whenever the lane is too narrow to safely share with a car for current conditions, which is much more often than most cyclists seem to realize. For example, even a relatively wide lane is too narrow to safely share when the cyclist is traveling downhill at 35mph, even if the speed limit is 50. Note that two of the conditions that determine whether a lane is "too narrow" in a given situation are the speeds of the cyclist and the car in question.
The situation we are discussing is being stopped at an intersection where the right-most lane allows for travel to destinations straight ahead or to the right. While it is possible for such a lane to be too narrow to safely share with cars side-by-side, I find that to be rarely the case. Many such lanes are wide enough for even a car to stop far enough to the left for other cars to safely squeeze by to turn right. This is especially true considering the speeds involved. The vehicle to the left is stopped. The other vehicle is typically crawling along, stopping at the intersection, the motorist checking that it's clear, and then proceeding. Certainly a lane wide enough for two cars to share is wide enough for a cyclist to stop far enough left for cars to squeeze by on his right to turn right. As such a lane gets progressively narrower, sharing by two cars becomes impossible, but sharing by car and bike still is safe. But if the lane is so narrow that stopping within a foot of the left edge of the lane requires cars to squeeze by the cyclist with less than a couple of feet to spare (normally 3 feet is minimal, but at these slow speeds I feel 2 is enough), then, yes, in such a lane I would stop near the left tire track and make the motorists wait.
The above assumes the cyclist is stopped at a red light and the right-turning motorists must also stop at the intersection before proceeding.
Serge