I can't believe the censors let you say that. They won't let me say ****. It's blatant linguistic discrimination. On the other hand, they would probably let me accuse you of being a shyster.

Fan också!

¡Mierda!

¡Hijo de puta!

imo, cycling cautiously at intersections is more risky than idaho stopping a cager traffic signal. and actual evidence (as opposed to safety nanny anecdotes) appears to support my opinion:

https://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/ma...most-accidents

not peer-reviewed = not an actual study

also, 13 = one really small n

edit: i guess the civil way to state my argument would be that we have the CTC making a big deal out of a non-significant sample size (n = 13) and a leaked report that can't be read. the Guardian is my first choice of British newspaper, but i wouldn't wipe the excess lubricant off my chain after it sat overnight with that "article."

I would agree. I would also add that the way not to get squished by a lorry is to not stop where the lorry can squish you. Stopping behind them...i.e. not filtering... is about the safest place you could be around a large truck. They aren't likely to lurch backwards.

Last time I checked (yesterday in fact) trucks, buses, even cars can't move sideways very well in heavy traffic. So...being NEXT to them, not BETWEEN their bumpers, is the safest position to cycle in order to not become the bologna in a car/truck sandwich. On a hill or bridge I would not want to be behind some giant wheeled "lorry" as it rolls backward waiting for the clutch to engage.

Did I misunderstand your post?

In Hamburg, almost all the bike lanes were brick, and up on the curb, more like an extra sidewalk. I never took the bike to Munchen (forgive my lack of umlauts...) or anywhere else, since it was just a crappy 'walmart' bike that we passed on to the next group of engineers coming to work there.

Trucks, cars, and buses can all move sideways...they aren't on rails. Nor would they have to move very far sideways to, as you say, make a cyclist into the bologna in a car/truck sandwich.

Anyone with the training to obtain a commercial driver's license for a multi-axled vehicle isn't going to let the truck roll backwards enough to cause anyone behind them a problem unless you are touching the bumper. They couldn't pass the test otherwise.

Here's an example of an intersection on my morning commute where I lane split. The yellow line shows the path I take.



There's usually a long line of stopped cars at the intersection, so I carefully ride between them to get to the limit line. I then move over to the center island and wait, taking off on the green light and heading to the second left turn lane. I usually am the first vehicle into the second intersection.

Cars see what I'm doing and seem to appreciate that I'm not interfering with their attempt to get through the intersection or turn left.

i did not say that it was significant or peer reviewed. nevertheless, the finding certainly does not support your safety nanny thesis. you would think this might give you pause or cause you to actually provide some evidence to support your opinion...

the idaho stop law also strongly suggests that cyclists can look and go without additional risk. although it has not yet been peer-reviewed yet, jason meggs has a manuscript arguing that the idaho stop, if anything, reduces risk of serious injury.

I think a common theme here is that those who are splitting do so when there is a line of motionless vehicles thus making risk of sideway movement irrelevant. Anything that promotes efficient movement of people without increased risk is fine with me.

Thank you!

And big trucks can't easily change lanes in slow moving gridlock either. If there is enough room for a truck to move into the next lane "through" me, then there should enough room for me to move over too.

The added danger of course are the big exposed wheels on trucks. It is almost impossible for a cyclist to get actually run over from the side by a passenger car drifting over the line but highly likely an unaware cyclist could end up under the wheels of a big truck very quickly from the side. I am presuming this is the fear (justified) for lane splitting past a moving truck.

I usually don't split lanes and there's very few spots on my commute where this is even an option.

When I do split lanes it's usualy under one of the following conditions:
- Major traffic jam where cars are barely moving even when the light is green. (Like in the New York video 1nterceptor posted.)
- To turn left at certain intersections. (Similar to the O.P.)

Yeah, that's the big thing for me.

About four years ago I was riding in a bike lane passing a line of recently motionless vehicles that had just started moving and one of them right hooked me. Since then, I vigilantly watch out for gaps in the line of traffic to my left (anything that might allow a car coming the other way to turn left or a car going my way to suddenly start moving) and once the line of traffic starts to move at all I don't pass or ride beside any vehicle anywhere near a possible turning location.

Obviously it would be safer to never pass a line of traffic even if you have a bike lane, but even safer than that would be to stay at home with all the doors and windows locked. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Yes. One time I was passing a stopped city bus, properly, not lane splitting, when the driver started to gun it out of the bus stop lane, intending to merge back into traffic. It was not going to be a problem to accelerate a bit and finish passing it and let it come in behind me, and that's when I discovered that this used road bike had a worn out freewheel that liked to skip and slip. It went ka-chunk and my foot came off the pedal and I swerved around, recovered, braked, and dropped in behind the bus. Almost ate it right next to that bus, and I was looking at those wheels rolling right by my face. That sure got the old heart going.

It would depend what's going on.

In London there have been a few cases of cyclists squashed between a turning lorry and roadside barriers because they got into a position where they couldn't escape and the lorry driver couldn't see they were there. I vaguely recall an incident some years ago where the lorry driver didn't even know he had crushed a cyclist so badly they died - he hadn't seen them because they were in a blind spot, the lorry was big enough that presumably he couldn't feel any feedback to tell him something was wrong, so he had no way of knowing.

Nowadays a lot of larger vehicles carry warnings on the back to tell cyclists not to pass on the inside, or to be careful passing on the inside. A lot of lorries now have a lot more mirrors than they used to - IIRC one of the bosses of a haulage firm was sufficiently concerned that his drivers could literally kill another road user and not even know they had done it that he ordered his fleet to be fitted with enough mirrors that cyclists couldn't disappear into blind spots.

Ideally I'd want to be in front of a heavy lorry, failing that I'd be far enough behind that I wouldn't get squashed if it rolled backwards on a hill. Beside it just seems like a bad place to be however you wrap it up - if the driver doesn't see me and moves across to let oncoming traffic pass, or turns, or does anything else then I've got nowhere to go.

So we are talking about cyclists splitting between the lorry and the curb where a turning truck will use up every inch of free space and perhaps drag a couple of wheels over the curb as well??? That is certain doom. I don't consider riding in the gutter the same as lane splitting although it would be considered filtering. Maybe we have a communication breakdown (language barrier) here.

In the USA, the term "lane splitting" only includes riding on the dashed white lines between the auto lanes. "Filtering" means advancing between vehicles lanes OR next to vehicles curbside. Huge difference in chance of getting rolled over. There is an entire YouTube vid of unfortunate people on bikes, scooters, and on foot getting crushed by turning trucks (wish I had never watched it) as they daydreamed along without a clue. And yes, the truck driver won't have a clue he has run over a person as he rolls along.

Lane splitting trucks/buses is much less dangerous than filtering while hugging the right curb. I agree 100% if this was the intended message.

These are some newer type, Green Lane, bicycle lanes that we have on our bike commute to my third grader's elementary school. They continue past the elementary school to get you down safely to Zilker Park, or at least the big hill at the top of Robert E. Lee. The intention is to separate bike traffic from motorist traffic, even if it is primarily a psychological barrier (cones, flags, green colored lanes in intersections, etc.).
This design also helps to decrease the chance of a right hook. Maybe. Attention, avoidance, care are the best ways. And I still split lanes, sometimes, when it makes sense, as discussed, and other alternatives are lacking.

Yeah, 40% of what I ride daily is like a "paver" or a walkway stone in the US. And, yeah they're part of the sidewalk in a way.

If you come back to Deutschland let me know and I'll take you out.

Here we have "bike boxes" where the traffic can't stop and the bikes can. Essentially, it keeps the bikes first in the traffic, which means you don't have to split like that, you could ride all the way in bike lane on the right and then at the light get in front of all of the traffic and move to the left, where they could see that you're turning.

(a) if it's not peer-reviewed, it's not really relevant
(b) one can't really support a (hypo)thesis, one can only disprove one, if the science is being done correctly.
(c) an MS has not been peer-reviewed ... see (a)

just my €0.02

after Meggs et al. has been published, i'd be more than happy to read it, so feel free to post/pass it to me.

That has not been my observation of lane splitting. I've seen it happen with when the line of vehicles is moving or when the line of vehicles is starting to move as well as when the line is stationary.


A truck, which fills the lane more than a passenger car does, doesn't have to move much to either side to catch a filtering cyclist. And, as I said above, the line isn't going to be stationary forever.

My point exactly.

Most people aren't going to filter on the left side of a vehicle. You might but... I've observed that most people filter to the passenger's side of the vehicles which is usually against a curb or a right turn lane. And lots of them do it with a moving line of cars. I've seen some crazy people who filter left turns then sit between a left turning car...in a position where the motorist doesn't expect anything...and a moving line of traffic just waiting to be turned into a grease spot between two cars.