Ninety5rpm

Really well written and interesting perspective on how a little traffic cycling education can be transformative for a cyclist:

www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/10/3/how-to-bike-on-a-stroad

genec

I always felt that having to practice that while cycling lead to better defensive driving while motoring.
and no, I have no stats on that.

VRC

Spoiler alert: a stroad is a street-road...it takes several clicks to find this out.

GamblerGORD53

Road hog alert.

B. Carfree

Do I hear a dog barking?

“Think of them as barking dogs,” Karabell said. “It’s territorial. But you’re far more likely to get hurt by a driver who doesn’t notice you there and says nothing than by a driver who does notice you there and calls you a mean name.”

Seriously, when the road is set up in such a way that a cyclist must take a full lane for safety, only a fool would hug the gutter. It's smart, and it's the law.

GamblerGORD53

Yah suuure.
Go ask the dope in Tennessee who got whupped by the Volvo for crowding BOTH lanes.

Chicago Al 

In inverse order:

1. The cyclist wasn't crowding both lanes. It's a 'scenic highway' for leisurely driving, not a superhighway. Bikes are not only allowed but encouraged, and are explicitly allowed to use the full lane. The motorist had plenty of room to safely pass, in fact another, in a larger vehicle, had just done so.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/617...fetysignb2.jpg

2. It wasn't the Volvo at fault, it was the driver, and he's on trial right now.

3. 'Whupped' seems like a strange term for any cyclist to use about any other cyclist who's been deliberately hit by a driver. A better one would probably be 'assault[ed] with a deadly weapon' or 'felony reckless endangerment,' depending on whether you favor the federal or state version. Or better yet, how about both! As Marshall Neely, the driver, is currently facing, along with an assortment of other charges.

4. There's a dope here, but it wasn't the Tennessee cyclist.

Ninety5rpm

In addition, that's an extremely rare type of crash. You're more likely to get shot at a mass shooting, but that doesn't keep you from going out in public.

Also, there are many reasons to use a mirror, and one of them is to be aware of such an unlikely incident before it's too late to do anything about it. If you're taking the lane motorists who aren't slowing or moving out of the way of hitting you stand out clearly from those who are slowing or changing lanes to pass you. But if you're riding at the edge "out of the way", drivers who will drift into you at the last moment are indistinguishable from those who will pass by you without hitting you because they're all behaving identically until those final moments.

I-Like-To-Bike

Any info or idea, let alone a credible source for the frequency of collisions ("crashes" per exposure time or distance) of "edge riding" cyclists with vehicles that drifted into the edge at the last moment? What makes you think that scenario is NOT an extremely rare type of "crash"?

genec

You know nobody really reports or collects such data, accurately... why do you keep asking?

I-Like-To-Bike

Because some posters keep preaching the same old, same old unsubstantiated baloney about the alleged reduction in risk that would be gained if only those so-called incompetent or ignorant cyclists would embrace the favored/promoted cycling technique. Maybe one day one of the VC proselytizers will actually produce something besides hot air to substantiate their platitudes about reducing cycling risk.

JoeyBike

I know of a cyclist in Brittan who accidentally hit a pedestrian with a bicycle and got 18 months in the slammer because she went and died over it. How much time you think he would have gotten if he had deliberately hit her? The motorist who deliberately hits anyone should spend significant time sequestered away from the general public.

JoeyBike

It is painful to agree with you. But i can't see how any rigid cycling dogma would work under every circumstance. I get beaten up around here enough, but my dogma is really "anything goes" within the confines of the individual cyclist's sensibilities. If you believes it makes you safer, do it. In my vast cycling experiences, I have tried everything, and continue to select from a wide menu of techniques, some of which are just not possible for the average cyclist.

Do we really want every sub-10mph cyclist in the world cycling VC style? You think motorists are pi$$ed a us now?

Too many variables involved to preach any fixed set of rules for cycling nationwide (USA). Therefore, statistics can not exist regarding VC.

Ninety5rpm

I frequently read about and hear of cyclists riding at the edge, in shoulders and bike lanes who get hit. Anything I frequently hear or read about is not "extremely rare" by my definition of "extremely rare".

I very rarely read or hear about cyclists hit from behind who are taking the lane; so that qualifies as "extremely rare".

But none of that is pertinent to my point, which perhaps you missed.

Even if the odds of getting hit from behind are the same regardless of whether you're in the lane or "out of the way", and even if you're more likely to get hit while taking the lane, if you have a mirror you have a much better chance of recognizing the threat before it's too late to dodge. By "much better" I mean "excellent" chance if taking the lane, and zero chance if riding in any edge position.

If you're taking the lane and you're going to get hit, five seconds before you're hit the car will be going at speed directly at you in your lane; totally obvious in a mirror. That's plenty of time to recognize the unfolding doom and to dodge.

If you're in a bike lane, on a shoulder or riding at the edge and you're going to get hit by a car that drifts into you, five seconds before you're hit the car is likely to be going at a speed and on a trajectory indiscernible from the speed and trajectory of everyone who will not drift and hit you. You will have no idea that you're in imminent danger, until too late.

No need for any studies or statistics to prove that. Just go ride around with a mirror and experiment with positioning. You'll see what I mean.

Ninety5rpm

Have you read the article? The approach taken by CyclingSavvy is not to tell people what to do or how to ride, but to present the various options and pros and cons of each. Ultimately, each cyclist has to make his or her own decisions, of course.

Do you think the article is referring to any "rigid cycling dogma"? If so, what? (please quote). If not, why are you talking about that here?

Plenty of folks all over the country use the full lane in narrow lanes at sub-10 mph, whether climbing, pulling a kid or a lot of gear, or just a newbie slow cyclist who is a recent CyclingSavvy graduate; and generally they report much better treatment from motorists when doing that than when edge riding.

Yes, the statistics would be very difficult to collect, if not impossible.

PatrickGSR94

Good thing I vary my cycling techniques based on road type, traffic level and other conditions.

I-Like-To-Bike

Correct, both what you choose to "frequently read about", and your own unique "definitions" for establishing risk probability are not pertinent to anything but reinforcing your belief in your own WAGs and unfounded speculation about reducing bicycling risk.

Your nightmares about the threat to bicyclists from an alleged high frequency of motor vehicles suddenly swerving to the right to pick off cyclists riding to the right are even less pertinent, no matter how firmly you might believe in them.

AlmostTrick

Agreed!


This training can be very helpful for newer or less experienced riders... Empowering them to ride on roads they may have never thought they could.


Older and more experienced cyclists could surely benefit too. (provided they don't exhibit an immediate and irrational aversion to anything that even hints at VC.)


Thanks for posting!

Ninety5rpm

What I choose to read about are all bike crashes. As a result of that choice, a high proportion involves edge cyclists hit by drifting motorists, especially if you exclude the crashes involving blatant dangerous cycling behavior (running reds, no lights at night, salmons) and the classic crossing conflicts (right hook, left cross, pullout).

I-Like-To-Bike

Hinting at, preferring, or even recommending vehicular cycling techniques are just fine and dandy and I have no aversion to people stating their preferences.

Making claims that there is any credible evidence that the use of such techniques reduces overall bicycling injury risk for those who use it, or would reduce the risk of injury by the cycling public if only they would adapt vehicular cycling techniques is based on opinion, speculation and wishful thinking at best. At worst, such claims have been based on misrepresentation of non-existent data or of what little data that existed, sometimes in order to promote a specific program of cycling instruction, sometimes by ignorance of the risk evaluation process.

Ninety5rpm

Vehicular cycling "techniques", as I understand it, essentially amount to:

1. Following the rules (right side, stop at reds, etc.)
2. Improve your vantage (to better see threats ahead), distance from edge hazards, and your conspicuousness to others (from all sides) by using lane position to your advantage (ride where others are looking).

Do you really need a study to accept that breaking rules and being less conspicuous increases overall bicycling injury risk?

I-Like-To-Bike

Point 1 is no more associated with "vehicular cycling techniques" than not "vehicular cycling techniques" or cyclists who never heard of "vehicular cycling techniques. And is not the issue here, claims of bicycling risk reduction through lane positioning is the issue.

Point 2, believing that cycling risk is reduced by allegedly improving so-called "vantage" and "conspicuousness" by using lane positioning technique in the absence of any evidence may be comforting to its practitioners but in reality is no different than believing in being protected by belief in any other rumor or fable, even if often repeated by true believers and accepted as an article of faith.

Trakhak

"because she went and died over it."

Nice. I've tried to think up an even more opaque phrase to avoid the obvious "because he killed her," but nothing comes to mind.

Ninety5rpm

Bicyclists in general do not associate rule-following with safety; more of a burden.

1) That's like saying riding at night without lights is just as safe as riding at night with lights because there is no evidence of riding at night with lights being safer.

2) Reasonable people take it as a given that being more conspicuous is safer. If you don't believe riding in the lane makes you more conspicuous than riding at the edge, then you haven't seriously experimented with both. It easy to verify. Scientifically repeatable by anyone with a bicycle, a mirror, and a little time in traffic riding conspicuously in the lane and inconspicuously "out of the way", and observing how others in traffic react.

AlmostTrick

Did someone here do this? Either way it doesn't matter. The mere mention of VC techniques in a positive light is guaranteed to get some BF members panties twisted in a wad.

Right. I know of one poster who fully "took the lane" with a light tower mounted on back, on a 50+ mph roadway daily for years because it was the safest way to ride it. He had no "credible evidence" it was safer, and apparently didn't need any. Yet he questions what evidence others have when they say VC style techniques work for them.