dougmc

You're assuming that this driver is actually fair about things.

The reality is often more like this --

-- if you stay, you're doing it simply to make him even later. You don't belong on the road!
-- if you filter to the front, you're breaking the law, like all cyclists do (even if this is legal.) It's not fair at all -- why do you get to do this and not him? You don't even pay taxes for the road! You don't even belong on the road!

sudo bike

This is actually a much better description of pretty much what I do.

contango 

If the driver is going to think I'm doing the wrong thing whatever I do, I might as well do whatever gives me an edge, especially when it doesn't cost anyone else anything.

ladyraestewart

Could you quote the statute? My last check is that HB 1571 is still in committee and only in the House - the Senate has not yet even had a pass at it. Previous attempts have all failed. If this one gets passed in this session, it'll probably be a September or January 1 implimentation date so they can roll out all sorts of advance warning to the general public.

ladyraestewart

No cigar --- bikes fall under the same codes as motorized vehicles when they use public roads. That means if it illegal for a car it is illegal for a cyclists, almost no exceptions.

hairnet

If waiting won't get you through the light then go ahead and filter up. I'm talking about when filtering does you no better than waiting behind the cars that already passed you. If lining up has you waiting through light cycles then obviously traffic is not moving and filtering up will get you ahead and all will be well.

As Genec has said.
I have only recently started to slow myself down to, in a way, force myself to appreciate just being outside and on my bike. I mainly ride my fixed gear and I have really lowered the gearing so that just to go 18mph I have to keep a cadence of over 100. But on my road bike it is all about going fast

zac

Sounds good. :thumbsup:

Also to be prudent, just be aware of what your local state laws are regarding bicycles and especially passing on the right. Additionally know what your local city/town ordinances are regarding sidewalk useage in those areas too. Those are all good things to know regardless, and many carry a copy of them on their person for just in case

dwellman

Exactly.

Change the route or change the time of day of the original route. . or stop for a danish until traffic clears. Oh, look: they have WiFi.

ZCow

I would queue up with traffic and position myself along the left tire markings. The reason for this is visibility and the sight lines of other vehicles. Think about it. If you get a green light and a car wants to turn right, you are stuck in between a curb and a car...not a good outcome. If you move to the right of two or so cars you are obscured by left turning motorists. By positioning yourself in a more left oriented marking on the lane you are still asserting lane position and increase your visibility to left turning cars and control right turning traffic.

You have a clouded idea of the purpose of riding bicycles. Being queued in traffic doesn't "defeat the purpose of riding" at all. It's not a matter of pretending you are something you are not, it is simply a safer way to ride. If you want to jump off the road and onto the sidewalk, cut through crosswalks, and get back on the road just to pass an intersection how does that make you different or "more efficient" than a car that runs a red light or uses a turn only lane as a means to actually go straight and blow past the cars queued up? The reason is safety. It's about being visible and getting from point A to point B in the safest and smartest manner for all vehicles. Also, if you pay attention to how lights function, in the scheme of things, they are optimized for the pace of cyclist, meaning, oftentimes you will hit more consecutive green lights as a cyclist than a car based solely on your speed.

himespau 

It depends. There's one light (well actually 2 consecutive lights) where traffic is pretty much always stopped due to morning rush hour traffic that sometimes I wait through the first one depending on room and the length of the line, but I pretty much always filter through the second one as the lane is super wide and 90+% of the traffic is turning left and I'm turning right onto a bike lane. Also the intersection outside my apartment complex if the line is more than 5-6 cars and no one in front of me has their right turn blinker on, I'll filter to turn right on red into my complex. Other than that, I pretty much always wait in line.

fuji86

This one is easy, it assumes you are turning left too ? I'm going to ride up to the intersection on the right hand side. Get off the bike and cross the intersection. Cyclist to the intersection, pedestrian crossing it, nobody on a bike is going to wait thru 6 light changes. And if there's only 1 car going straight thru, the other 29 either have a light or traffic against them to turn left. Chances are all I have to do is wait the 1 car out, then I can cross the intersection at least 1/2 way with an elevated curbed island divider ?

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...170.5,,0,17.38

PS-Use the street view, this intersection has that situation all the time. As busy as it is at times, it's a very unsafe intersection, local knowledge helps though. But as busy as it can be, there are also certain times of the day when very little or no traffic goes thru it.

.baker

I split the lanes and just ride up to the very front but im also very impatient

I would never do this on the right side of cars in the right lane, thats asking to get hooked.

I dont see the reasoning in waiting behind a bunch of cars that arent going anywhere for at least a few moments.

Once in the front if you use your intelligence you can be aware of when the light is going to change and time it well enough to accelerate through the intersection before you have to worry about any cars attempting to overtake you.

dougmc

Really, if you're going to quote me and my "this", you should be precise about what you're referring to.

In this case, "this" refers to "You aren't splitting lanes if you're riding in a shoulder, gutter, sidewalk or even on the right side of the rightmost lane to the right of the cars. I'm pretty sure this is legal in Texas. Almost certain." I was not saying that splitting lanes was legal -- in fact, I said I think the opposite is true.

Bicycles and cars obey mostly the same laws -- but there are some differences. In this case, the important difference are that bikes can generally use bike lanes and cars can't, bikes can always ride on the shoulder and cars can only do so under certain conditions, and bikes and cars are generally permitted to share a lane if the lane is wide enough to do so.

Certainly, it's legal to pass a car to the right if you're in a bike lane. And since riding on a shoulder or sidewalk (if riding there is not prohibited by local ordinance) is also legal, passing a car there too should also be legal. The only part that could be illegal would be sharing a lane with a car and passing them to the right -- it's legal for them to pass you in that situation, but maybe it's not legal for you to pass them. Maybe ... time to go to the actual laws.

545.057. PASSING TO THE RIGHT. (a) An operator may pass to the right of another vehicle only if conditions permit safely passing to the right and:
(1) the vehicle being passed is making or about to make a left turn; and
(2) the operator is:
(A) on a highway having unobstructed pavement not occupied by parked vehicles and sufficient width for two or more
lines of moving vehicles in each direction; or
(B) on a one-way street or on a roadway having traffic restricted to one direction of movement and the roadway is
free from obstructions and wide enough for two or more lines of moving vehicles.
(b) An operator may not pass to the right by leaving the main traveled portion of a roadway except as provided by Section 545.058.

545.058. DRIVING ON IMPROVED SHOULDER is next, and it does say that bicycles may ride on the shoulder.

So ... if he's not turning, it might very well be illegal if you do it in the same lane (though I doubt you'd ever get a ticket), but in a bike lane, shoulder or sidewalk? It must be legal -- if not, then it's illegal for cars in the right lane ever pass up a car in the left lane.

ItsJustMe

Mainly because they all probably just passed you, and they're all going to pass you again. This obviously varies greatly depending on the situation. In many cities, I understand that a bicycle can pretty much keep up with traffic. Not so around here. Any car you pull past WILL be passing you again, and that irritates a lot of drivers.

I move up on the right if there's a shoulder or a bike lane AND I'm going to be turning right, and I pull up if there is a bike lane; it'd be silly not to, no car that was in the rightmost lane would hang back behind other cars in the left lane. But you do have to watch out for right turners; when I get to the front of the line, if there's any doubt as to whether the guy at the front of the line is turning right or going straight, I'll usually stop just behind him (but in the bike lane) and when the light turns, keep up with the back, watching for him to turn right. That way I'm right in view of the 2nd guy in line, and easily able to slow if the 1st guy turns.

Digital_Cowboy

Also carry a copy of the Bicycling Street Smarts with you. See if there is one that has been tailored to your state.

Pscyclepath

But bicycles aren't motorcycles in Texas, or anywhere else.

The answer is to get in line with the cars and wait your turn.

Keith99

I actually bother to think, at least a little. If I've been taking the lane I'll wait or filter enough that I barely make the light (and end up behind the last car to make it). If this is a wide right lane setup I'll filter. If there is enough room I'll end up between the right turners and those going straight and then be happily on my way when the light changes, but NOT in the way of the drivers I filtered past. If that would be tight I'll take tjhe back of the right turning line, more or less in hte same track as their left wheels.

Only a hard and fast principle, I don't filter past and then take the lane.

maxine

This is exactly what I do -- which means that if I'm at an intersection with which I'm unfamiliar, I wait in line.

Actually, I have this identical situation on my commute -- on the very long run-up to a busy intersection I have a big, clear shoulder, and depending on the time of day, I will gleefully fly by at least 50 or 60 cars that are creeping along, stop-and-go. The shoulder peters out into a right-turn lane, but it is seldom used. (The overwhelming majority of the cars here are either going left, and there's a turn lane for them so I don't need to worry about them too much, or straight, like I am.)

So I carefully scoot back to the center of the straight-ahead lane from the RTOL. At this point I am almost always very near the front of the line, anyway, so I usually just wait. If I think I will get hung up at the light (and thus hang up the motorists behind me), I'll move up to the front, because shortly beyond the intersection, the shoulder opens up again, and I can scoot back over.

I don't like to do the "pass a car that has to pass you later" thing if I can avoid it, just (as others have pointed out) on the grounds of not aggravating motorists, for whom this is a pet peeve. Overall, my general goal while riding in traffic is conflict avoidance -- if there is a way that is safe and not *too* inconvenient for me to avoid occupying the same space (or close to it) as that desired by a motorist, I'll generally take that option, even if that means I'm waiving some of my legal "rights to the road."

Sometimes this means I do things that are, in fact, illegal -- in my neighborhood, for example, I sometimes need to make a left turn at a 3-way stop sign with excellent sight lines all around. If I see a car approaching me from across the intersection, I'll make the left without slowing down very much, so that the oncoming driver doesn't have to wonder how fast I'll be coming across the intersection ahead of him -- he can proceed straight without worrying about me at all, because I'm out of his hair before he gets to the stop sign.

bluefoxicy

Legality aside, I tend to ride up to the light as long as I'm in no one's way. If I am, I hop on the corner of the sidewalk and let the right turners turn on red; if it's no turn on red, I sit squarely in their way (if they WANT to make an illegal right turn... that's not my problem).

The point of this is that I don't want to be behind a row of 15 cars, have the light turn green, have 15 cars filter out, then ride up to the light nice and slow while the gap widens ahead of me ... and then leave a bunch of angry motorists behind when the light turns red. Light turns green, I let the guy to the left of me go to make sure he's proceeding straight through, then I take off. Often this ends in me crossing the street and waiting for traffic, as I might be sandwiched between a parked car and proceeding traffic once I'm over there (so I just stay behind the parked car and let it clear up); but it gets me out of traffic's way.

That's one thing you always want to do: Stay out of the way of traffic. Cars on the road that double-park, throw their hazard flashers on, then proceed to vacate ... are annoying. So is a bicyclist that's riding in the middle of the lane on a short light, holding back a dozen cars that could easily get through that light. If you can get out of their way by moving to the front and passing across the street--particularly easy at intersections--then go for it. Take proper safety precautions, of course; but it's better than holding up traffic. If the road is wide across the street, you can easily proceed; if not, well.. for the privilege of moving ahead, you also become "merging traffic," which means you can wait for traffic to clear. Especially at a short light, where traffic eventually gets shut off (watch out for runners and turners).

It's efficient for the whole system: you don't have to wait for traffic at short lights (and thus maybe miss the light, repeatedly, in a long line); traffic behind you doesn't have to wait for you when you reach/pass the light. I don't do this at left-turn lanes though; too dangerous, since my target is the right side and well... riding out into the middle of an intersection between two lanes of traffic with discretionary turning arcs is not safe. Depending on the situation, I'll get out in front for half the turn (2-3 seconds), or sometimes just wait (pull out into the intersection, wait for the light to change, then proceed).

Paul Barnard

Do you give them 3 feet of clearance?

genec

Obviously you don't live in an area with 45, 55 and 65MPH speed limits on arterial roads, where lights are NOT optimized for the pace of cycling, and in fact would not even change unless you had the metal mass of a motor vehicle.

genec

Oh THAT makes so much sense when you can walk faster than the queue of motor vehicles...

Com'on, the answers are very dependent on the situation and no single blanket answer is going to fit all situations.

ladyraestewart

I wasn't trying to misquote you and I apologize for the misunderstanding dougmc.

sudo bike

I'm not sure a 30 lbs vehicle poses the same risk to the occupant of a 2 ton vehicle when it passes within 3 ft at 10mph as when a 2 ton vehicle passes a 30 lbs vehicle at 40+mph. YMMV.

KD5NRH

There's an odd intersection here where there isn't really an easy way to turn right, (it would be a ~150 degree turn) and the light tends to be short. At that one, I ride slowly up the nice wide shoulder and try to time it so that I don't have to stop by the time I get to the intersection. Pretty much everywhere else, I get in line and wait.

For the most part, sitting in line, I'll have to hold back on my start to keep from rear-ending the bozo in front of me that can't find the gas pedal anyway, so I'm not exactly holding anybody up.