Originally Posted by LittleBigMan
Riding as far to the right as practicable ... does not mean you can't pass. You can legally pass a car that's moving slower than you ...
Or a ready-mix truck (they can be really slow to accelerate when they're spinning a full load of cement!). Now I feel inspired to tell another story. Ready? Here goes!
Once upon a time, NCDOT published a really excellent pamphlet called "Streetwise Cycling, a Guide to Safe Bicycling in North Carolina". NCDOT paid a firm owned by a nationally recognized expert, John Williams, to write the 32-pages. The stated purpose of Streetwise was to "... explain the rights and duties of bicyclists, as vehicle operators on North Carolina's roads."
As an example of what's in the "You're the Driver of a Vehicle" chapter of Streetwise, here's the explanation of NCGS § 20-146(b) which is titled "Slow moving vehicles must keep to the right side":
If you are going slower than the speed limit, you must ride
in the right through lane
or
as close to the curb as practicable.
However, you can move to the left to make a left turn or pass another vehicle going the same direction.
What does practicable mean? There is no hard and fast definition. In one situation, it might mean two feet; in another, eight feet. Just how close "practicable" is depends on the road, the surface, the traffic, the speed of the rider, and other factors. For example, you can ride far enough to the left to avoid a roadside hazard (like a drain grate, a parked car door, right turning cars or debris).
Note that there are two terms in this rule:
- in the right through lane
- as close to the curb as practicable
and that the operator which acts on those two terms is "or".
In other words, every operator traveling slower than the posted speed should be
in the right-hand through lane if it's marked and if it's usable
or
as close as practicable to the edge of the traveled way.