conspiratemus1

Riding home from commuter train station, planning to make usual right turn from residential side street (one lane in each direction) onto urban collector street (one normal lane in each direction with left-turn pockets for the side streets and a 3-foot bike lane. Usual humongous storm sewer catch basin plunked in the middle of the bike lane a few feet beyond the edge of the intersection.) Light is green as I approach, making right turn signal (Goody-TwoShoes that I am.)

Mini-van across from me signalling intent to turn left, clearly waiting for me, no other vehicles near intersection. As I begin my turn right, she turns left, suddenly filling the space I was aiming for. I yelled (just "Hey! Wait!" -- no profanity) and she looks over at me, startled. Fortunately I was able to tighten my turn and carve clear of her. So happens that the next light 50 m away is red. I pull up beside her in the left-turn lane (since I'm turning left), intending (if her window is open) to remind her politely that she has to yield when turning left. Before I can open my mouth, she's yelling at me, "Idiot cyclist!" upset that I startled her and could have made her have an accident. I do my "You have to yield to everyone when you're making a left turn" bit. She replies, "But I didn't cut into the bike lane when I turned, so what's your problem?" That's when the light went on for me. She was assuming that I would turn right into the bike lane, leaving the grown-up lane for her to turn left into, just the way you sometimes see cars doing it into streets that have two normal grown-up lanes in that direction. (Defensive drivers don't do this, of course, for obvious reasons.) I just said, "Doesn't matter, you still have to yield to all traffic when you turn left, and you didn't -- you nearly hit me." Then the light turned to green and we went our separate ways, scowling at each other.

Now, of course I wasn't intending to turn tight into that dinky little bike lane and run over the sewer grate while leaned over at green light speeds coming off a slight downgrade. I was aiming for the wide lane, which, had it not been for the bike lane, there would have been no ambiguity about my entitlement to.

Ontario doesn't confine cyclists to bike lanes per se, other than the general requirement to keep to the right except when overtaking or turning left or other good reason. But on streets with two or more lanes in your direction, right turns are supposed to made into the right-most lane, just as left turns are to be made into the left-most lane. Does the bike lane count as a "lane" for this purpose? In other words, did the squeezing in of this little bike lane turn Rebecca St. from a one-lane-each-way street (where left-turners unambiguously yield to right-turners) into a two-lane street where the cyclist turning right (but not the motorist) must slow down to a crawl in order to get around the tight turn and not dump on the sewer grate.....and the left-turner says, Hey, if it's just a cyclist turning right I don't have to really yield any more 'cos he's got his own lane to stay in.

Since this is the closest I've come to a collision on this route (30 km in the summer) in the six years I've been using it, I'm applying two lessons:

1) Avoid turning right onto streets with bike lanes -- I've removed this turn from my route, switched to a busier, but more obviously predictable, arterial road with no bike lanes.

2) Don't signal right turns when you have on-coming traffic that might or could turn left. Keep them guessing that you might be planning to go straight through, so they won't be able to exploit your good intentions and try to beat you into the turn. Or, as in this case, won't make the assumption that there will be room for both of you to turn simultaneously just because there's a white stripe on the road.

gmt13

She made an assumption that was wrong, so I am not surprised at her anger. It's human nature to blame others in order to divest yourself any responsibility.

I think this is an excellent idea. They still will be miffed but your risk is much reduced.

-G

Notso_fastLane

I would just do 2), if I were you. Let them wait for a few extra seconds, it won't kill them, but their impatience could easily kill you.

nelson249

This is a common mistake that turning drivers make. I live near one of the most dangerous intersections in Waterloo Region (Homer Watson Blvd and Ottawa in Kitchener). As a motorist I am constantly harassed by impatient drivers behind me because I steadfastly refuse to make a right hand turn when opposing traffic has an advanced green. Despite there being two lanes I will never turn simultaneously with another driver who has the right of way whether they are on two wheels or four. I've never had this happen on the bike though.

spivonious

While I would never do what she did, she does have a point. Right turners are supposed to stay in the far right lane. In this case, and since you're on a bicycle, you should have turned into the bike lane, sewer grate and excessive speed notwithstanding.

welshTerrier2

That's really the issue here. Drivers from opposite directions should never turn simultaneously. Whoever has the right of way should turn first. While they should turn into the nearest lane (i.e. left turners left lane; right turners right lane) when there are two or more lanes, they don't always do that.

With a cyclist turning right, the oncoming driver should have yielded because they had no way of knowing how wide a turn the cyclist might choose to make or might have to make. While a cyclist should, given the OP's situation, turn bike lane to bike lane and then signal to move into the wider lane, no car driver should assume this will happen.

To make such an assumption puts a cyclist's life in danger. In this situation, I think both the cyclist and the driver were wrong but the driver clearly should have yielded.

As for not signaling to control someone else's behavior, I think that's a very bad idea. The goal is not control; it's enhanced communication. While failing to signal might, indeed, freeze the oncoming driver (or not), one of the goals of signaling is notify other drivers and pedestrians of your intentions. As cyclists, I think we should try to enhance communication and not promote poor practices.

SpecialX

So in other words, you were turning right onto a street that has a bicycle lane, and you were surprised that she thought that was your intended place... How RUDE!!
(sarcasm)
Of COURSE she thought you were gonna go in the bicycle lane.. THATS what it's there for.. Duh.

RE: see my sig below.. vvvvvvvvvvv

P.S. You were going fast, after a downhill and didn't want to slow down is the REAL issue here...

I ALWAYS slow down to make the right turn from bike lane to bike lane.. It's the safest way... In other words, you wanted to control the entire roadway for yourself.. Just my .02

conspiratemus1

I wasn't actually in a bike lane at the start of the turn -- as I said, the originating street was a minor street with only one lane in each direction. The destination street had the narrow bike lane. So I was turning from a no-bike-lane street into a bike-lane street, not that this difference matters much, agreed. My speed wasn't excessive to make a safe turn into a normal street -- the downgrade is barely perceptible -- it was only too fast to make a tight-radius turn into the bike lane and over the sewer grate. If I had been stopped at a red light at that intersection, I would have turned tight into the bike lane at low speed. But if I saw you crawling around that intersection on a green instead of sweeping into a wider normal turn, I would laugh at you. Sorry, but that's just silly. Except when I get hit by a left-turner and you don't.

Bike lanes are to reduce cyclists' fears of being run down from behind. Those who advocate for them have to accept that the downside is that they increase confusion at intersections as seems to have happened here.
I don't doubt for a moment that the driver would have been charged with failing to yield during a left turn, had she hit me, even if I was criticized for making a sloppy wide turn not respecting the bike lane marking. But my point of posting this "after-action report" is to avoid collisions, not adjudicate them. Since some of you agree with the woman who felt I had no business being outside the bike lane, that reinforces my decision to avoid routes where I would habitually turn right onto a street with a bike lane. That is good to know.

Most collisions result from a rule-of-the-road violation by one driver plus a lapse in defensive driving by the other.....with sometimes some systemic factor like poor road design thrown in. I think this near-miss highlights all three and is food for thought.

As for not signalling turns, so few cyclists do signal, that I doubt most motorists even care. I've often wondered if a cyclist signaling is such a novelty that some motorists interpret it as the "I'm letting you go ahead of me even though I have the right of way" wave. I always signal left turns. I also signal right turns where it helps motorists do things that won't endanger me much, such as when I'm planning to turn right into a side street where a motorist is waiting at a stop sign. Really, the motorist shouldn't crowd into the street until he's *sure* that I'm turning, but I really don't mind if they take my signal as "Go ahead, I really am turning and I know how hard it is to find a break in traffic so I promise I won't change my mind at the last second and T-bone you the way a car might." The special case of a right turn signal tempting a motorist to turn left in front you is just that: special.

Camilo

Yea, if I was the driver I would have made the same assumption, and I think you're wrong for not turning right into an obvious bike lane. To me, what you did is the same as if you were in a car and the road your were turning on to had two lanes in that direction and you turned right into the left lane instead of the right lane. The person turning left onto the same road in the same direction has claim to the left lane - you have claim to the right lane, which was the bike lane since you were a bike.

I'm with the driver, sorry.

Canada Panda

I'm with the driver as well. She had right-of-way to the leftmost side of the lane, you had right-of-way to the rightmost side (the bike lane) - same as driving. If the roadway is insufficient to allow two vehicles, then the left-turning driver yields; however this was not the case and you made an improper turn into her right-of-way.

When driving, if I need to turn left into a driveway immediately after a right turn and there is a left-turning vehicle with right-of-way, I wait for them to clear before I turn. I don't push my way into their lane and honk at them for assuming I would be making a right turn into the rightmost lane - the same behaviour should be observed when cycling.

charbucks

I would tend to agree with the driver as well, as legally a bike lane counts as a "lane". That's why there's dotted lines separating the bike lane at right-turn intersections - the car is supposed to actually merge into the bike lane before completing their right turn, as the law says that you must turn right only from the right-most lane. Most of the time, cars seems scared to enter the bike lane, so this doesn't often happen, but apparently that's how it should work. In Alberta, at least, and I think Ontario is much the same.

Can we see a streetview of the intersection in question? If the sewer grate was really dicey and the left-turning car could see that hazard, then it becomes a bit more unclear. For example, if the sewer grate were actually a parked car blocking the lane, then the van should almost certainly have yielded.

gmt13

Traffic laws may be clear on paper but tend to get rather ambiguous at street level. I believe that it is expected that left turners will yield to right turners. This is smart because the LTer has no idea what the RT will do. If this situation involved 2 cars vying for two lanes, the same thing may happen (e.g. the RTer may move directly into the left lane). It's just good defensive driving for the LTer to yield.

I had an incident last year that was somewhat similar. I was in the left turn lane at an intersection of two roads with two lanes in both directions. When I got the greenturn arrow, I proceeded to turn left into the right most lane of the cross street only to encounter a Volvo turning right on red into the same lane. I chased him down and expressed my displeasure of not yielding to a vehicle that had a green light. He responded that left turning vehicles are supposed to go in the left lane leaving the right lane open for folks turning right on red and that he was rather miffed at me not following the rules.

So the bottom line is that experience helps us to mitigate the ambiguity. Cyclists really need to understand that nobody on the road is 100% predictable so being able to anticipate the unexpected is far more important than right or wrong.

-G

degnaw

Legally may be one thing, but in practice, I'll never assuming right turning cars (or bikes) will turn into the rightmost lane. Very few people know that law IMO.

DNP

Like a lot of people here I'm conflicted. I know the law: multiple lanes means left turners take left-most lane and right-turners take right-most lane. This means efficient usage of the roadway. You know, that crap everyone says they're for.

In practice I see the majority of drivers making huge sweeps across multiple lanes, while I, dudley-do-right, signal and execute legal predictable lane changes. It's so common to drive this crappy that my behavior is actually not predictable. In this scenario, people who perform proper lane changes and those making right hand turns onto multiple lane roads are honked at/bullied by the "sweepers".

So basically you're one of the crappy road operators, but don't worry, you're in the majority.

unterhausen

it's apparently a little-known fact that if two vehicles from opposing side of the intersecting road are turning onto a road with two lanes, the right turning vehicle takes the rightmost lane, and the left turning vehicle takes the leftmost lane. So actually, neither has the ROW over the other. I looked this up in the uniform vehicle code because of the weird way people around here approach turning onto a 4 lane road.

nelson249

In Ontario an operator making a left turn must always yield to opposing traffic and may not complete a turn until it is safe to do so.

Canada Panda

In Ontario a left-turning vehicle may complete a turn only into the leftmost lane, and a right-turning vehicle may complete a turn only into the rightmost lane. Therefore, in the OP's scenario, there was no overlapping right-of-way - both vehicles were free to make the turn. Had the OP intended to proceed straight, then the left-turning vehicle would have been at fault for not yielding to through-traffic, with any signals given irrelevant.

In addition, Ontario gives left-turning vehicles absolute right of way when a green arrow indication is shown for an advanced left turn and through-traffic faces a red. This is the only scenario where a left-turning vehicle would not be at fault for hitting opposing through traffic.

genec

OK this is a "is a bike lane a legal lane discussion."

So that said... I actually tend to agree with the motorist... Look the BL is there; we want the BL recognized as a safe haven (in spite of the complexities for traffic they make) for cyclists... and that won't happen if we are ambiguous about using the BLs. Just as I chide my wife for making right turns into left lanes, I am going to suggest that the cyclist also should stick to the furthest right lined lane when making a turn onto a street with such a lane. Then signal that you plan on moving out due to drain, obstruction, need to turn, whatever.

Also, since you are a cyclist... (and we all know motorists get their training from crackerjack boxes, and when a cyclist and motorist collide, the cyclist loses), you may as well be upfront about it and delay your actions for the impatient cagers that do exist... or make your intended signals and movements so blatantly big and obvious only the worlds worst dullard motorist might miss them.

As the guy says "we don't get no respect," so to expect otherwise is a fools' game.

Yeah, I know that isn't what you want to hear... but to survive you have one of two modes... "messenger Joey style" where you take your big cajones and run ahead of the bulls, or "casper style", where you acknowledge that motorists are going to look past you, through you, away from you... and will generally do the wrong thing, and you just have to act like you are invisible and do what it takes to survive.

Acting like a car, just won't work unless you look like a car.

conspiratemus1

I didn't say I "wanted" to hear anything. I wasn't asking for agreement or even sympathy. I just wanted to highlight a hazard I had encountered for the first time and the countermeasure I've adopted.

Ontario very clearly puts the onus of avoiding collisions on the left-turning vehicle, which must yield to all other traffic no matter how many lanes there are (unless they have an advance green arrow in which case the right turners must yield, again no matter how many lanes there are.) In my incident, the presence of the bike lane caused the motorist to assume she could turn without yielding to me -- she didn't even look at me as she was turning, so sure was her assumption that I would turn into the bike lane and out of her way. (What are bike lanes for, if not to keep those idiot bike-riders over in the gutter where they belong?) She was actually quite surprised to see me just missing her when I yelled a warning to her. (It was the fact that she wasn't watching me that telegraphed to me -- in time -- that I was heading for a collision.)

My lesson learned from this is as I said in my original post: I have removed this intersection from my regular commute and life is much better as a result. I accept that really one is supposed to turn right into a bike lane even when it makes the turn more difficult and more dangerous than if there was no bike lane at all. But I don't want to face left-turners who assume that the bike lane means they no longer have to yield to me when making left turns. So I avoid the hazard altogether and we're all happy.

gcottay

Really? Pennsylvania cyclists are supposed to stay in the bike lane even when a grate makes it unsafe? In most states this is neither required nor recommended. In most states the left turning vehicle is responsible to yield right of way to the right turning vehicle. Is the fair Keystone State different?

spivonious

Wow, some hostility here. It's not required no, but by not staying in the far right lane, the cyclist here was bending some rules too. I doubt he had to move completely into the left lane to avoid a sewer grate.

Canada Panda

This is incorrect. From the HTA:

Which her movement was safe given that:

Had she hit you within the intersection, she would be at fault. If the collision were to occur past the intersection, then it would be a case of improper right turn contrary to HTA 141(2). I can confirm this when I meet with OPP next week.

conspiratemus1

^^ Even if this selective quotation properly captures the law*, I think we all learned in Driver's Ed that when you're turning left you yield to everyone (unless you have a green arrow.) Let's use a little common sense. While it's possible, most of the time, for two vehicles to turn simultaneously into a two-lane street, careful drivers don't do this (because it only works most of the time.) When turning left, good drivers wait till the right turner has finished his turn, wherever he ends up, before proceeding. If you hit someone while you're turning left, you have a lot of 'splainin' to do, and you have to hope that the right turner made an improper turn if you hope to beat the rap. I trust that all of you, when you're driving your cars, make safe left turns when you see right-turning cyclists.

I already said that I accept that a cyclist is supposed to turn right into a bike lane when there is one -- the lady in the van certainly expected me to, which is all that matters, really, and I think she believed that in good faith. I'm not trying to pick nits about who would have been at fault had we collided.

My point is simply that the van driver would not have turned left in front of me had there been no bike lane to constrain my turn. She would have waited until I finished my turn because she couldn't know that a single lane was wide enough for us both, even if I turned in the gutter. Since the bike lane makes Rebecca St. more difficult for me to turn right onto, I don't use this intersection any more. That's all.

All cyclists should be very careful about making right turns onto streets with bike lanes and must assume that cars will turn left in front of them.....which was quite a surprise to me that day, I can tell you!

-----------------------

*Footnote: Quoting the written statutes is a risky business in Canada, full of pitfalls for non-lawyers, since the English Common Law which rests on centuries of precedent influences how the courts decide cases. Even when you have that "ah-Ha!" moment on finding a passage that "proves" your point, it ain't necessarily so since the courts will apply the statute in the context of Common Law. One interesting provision in the HTA, a nod to Common Law, says if a moving motorist hits anything other than another [I]motor[I] vehicle -- pedestrian, horse, cyclist, fire hydrant, street furniture, whatever -- the motorist has the presumption of negligence and has to prove greater negligence on the part of the thing or person hit. Difficult to do if you hit a park bench or a Holstein, but easier if you hit a cyclist who is supposed to be obeying the rules of the road if old enough to know them. How much easier is where the Common Law comes in and works its mysterious ways.

cyuen

Regardless who's right, I think it is good practice to slow down and aim carefully at the bike lane lest something unexpected comes up. It is easier to widen the turn than to make it tighter in an emergency- like if a child ran out on to the street. I tend to follow rules to the book- unless it is really obvious that it is better or safer not to.

sudo bike

But doesn't this violate the basic precept of right-of-way? Unless you have a protected left-turn arrow, I would think it universal that you have to yield to everyone going through or turning right. Again, most people can get away with it with little issue but ultimately, if there was a crash, I'm reasonably sure the left-turner would be cited for a failure to yield. At least in drivers ed I remember being taught the left-turner is always lowest on the totem pole unless there is a green arrow...