Ah, so there's the kernel of it, eh?

Roads are for cars, we can't go confusing the motorists. Sorry, I don't buy it and neither does the Supreme Court.

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

Wow. I was never able to make Nick this mad. But if the two of you don't cool down the rhetoric, the mods are going to get involved.

I have no ideas what you are trying to accomplish
A. I can not comment on 'the abstract' because I have no idea what your abstract means - I defined a 'cycling utopia' in a different posting simply to give some definition to it.
B. The answer to your questions 1 and 2 are NO as I do not know what this 'design accepted by majority' is.
The only things I can discuss and debate are well defined situations or abstracts or reality both of which you seem pretty divorced from.

Also Serge did not need to make himself clear - if his is talking about changing existing laws than it is obvious he is talking about for existing BLs not BLs on planet Bill.

Al

So there it is. There is no issue of mandated BL separate from their design and installation. He made one reference to an existing LAW in his poll, but no reference to an existing LANE. The issue is existing LANES, not laws.

I never said roads are for cars. Roads are for sharing by all users. Perhaps the best way to share in some cases is a bike lane. If there exists such a case, then there should be a law governing its use. You value confusion? I can see why you like this thread.

Hey, I didn't start the thread. If we were talking about mandatory helmet laws, we could get somewhere because we all know what a helmet is (I think). Here, we have no definition of a BL so we can't get anywhere.

Allow me to offer one, I think it's generally in line with what people believe to be the case: "A portion of a roadway that has been designated by striping, signing, and pavement markings for the preferential or exclusive use of bicycles."

I suspect you still have nothing useful to say.

Thank you. I'll ignore the snide comment. Given that definition of BL, I am in favor of a law mandating its use because if use is optional, then behavior of cyclists would be less predictable and therefore more dangerous.

I'll quote part of Serge's poll:
"Do you support laws that require cyclists (with exceptions) to ride in bike lanes when they exist?"

...in Bike Lanes when they exist

Al

Dangerous to who? Not motorists since by and large they can just drive through a cyclist. Are you suggesting that a legislator is capable of anticipating every momentary need a cyclist may have and accounting for them? It sure seems like it.

Otherwise it's certainly not safer for the cyclist.

So who exactly is this safer for?

I'm just going from your own definition. Do you agree with the principle that predictable vehicle behavior is also safer?

I love it when you get existential. "when they exist" does not imply the current existential state of bike lanes but may refer to a future existential state. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Bill, your ducking the issue. What I mean by what you are trying to accomplish is what point your are trying to make. Please just tell us, what is your point, list out all the assumptions, all the details.

Also if you had been paying any attention to releated threads you should very well know what a BL is. Gene and Serge went thru this already.
Anyway if you are talking about BL you should define them as you see them so as not to confuse others.

Al

I am glad you have some love. I'll be a little too reasonable and acknoledge that Serge did not say exist now or exist in the future. But I also believe that any reasonable person, espeically any reasonable person who has followed Serge's writings, would agree that Serge was talking about the current state of Bike Lanes as they exist today.

Hey I also realize you are at the state where you are just lashing out and trying to antagonize. I shouldn't get drawn into it as there is really nothing left to discuss. But again if you want to restate your thoughts about mandatory BL with all the details, all the exceptions, all the assumptions and be open to thoughtful and mature discussion, go ahead and we can start over.

Al

No.

Really? So you hold that a vehicle that changes lanes unpredictably is just as safe as a vehicle that changes lanes predictably? Take the example of use of hand or turn signals. Unpredictable drivers may change lanes without signaling. Predictable drivers signal before turning. You see no difference in safety in this case?

I think the defintion by bt is a good start. Given his definition, why are you against mandatory bicycle lanes?

To quote what I wrote before earlier in this thread:
"The reason I am against mandatory or mandatory with exception is because if I do leave the lane for whatever good reason I have (and it will be for a good reason and with due caution, i.e. not a sudden swerve in front of a car) and it leads to an incident then the burden off proof is on me after the fact to explain why I left the lane and what exception did it fall under. And then this leads to all kinds of trouble, like why did I leave lane 100yrds before intersection to turn left instead of 50ft. BLs where they exist must remain 100% optional to allow me the cyclist to make the safest decision possible in its use and not be constrained by intracies of the law. It is not about free to do what I want, but free to do what is safest for me at any given time."

and

"I do want the legal option to do what is safest for me at any given moment and never have to justify my chosen exception after the fact to those that were not dealing with the situation at that exact moment in time as seen from my eyes."

Al

No.

But predictability is not everything. Running into a brick wall is predictable. Wiping out on the ice is predictable. Sometimes one must change lanes for reasons only the person doing so can perceive. It is incumbent upon that person to make sure they respect any adjacent driver's right of way, but it's sure not predictable.

Only on paper and in bad simulations is the world "predictable".

For the record, I was talking about any lane; real or hypothetical; past, present or future; American, French, Nigerian, Danish, English, Iraqian, or Chinese; San Diegan, Santa Barbarian, Davisian, Bostonian, Houstonian, or New York Citian; that fits the basic well-understood definition of a bike lane: a lane designated primarily (or exclusively) for bicycle use on a roadway adjacent to vehicular lanes, and separated from the other lanes by a stripe.

This applies any time I use the term, "bike lane".
And when I say "ALL bike lanes", I mean ANY and ALL lanes that fit this definition.

I hope that makes it clear.

Serge

P.S. [added later]

In retrospect, Trevor's definition, which I saw only after I wrote mine, "A portion of a roadway that has been designated by striping, signing, and pavement markings for the preferential or exclusive use of bicycles.", is the same as mine, except in his the adjacency to vehicular lanes is implied, while I made it explicit. Also, I didn't specify how the bike lane is designated (marking, signs, something else, all of the above) for bicycle use, because I don't think that matters.

Nope, Serge is also talking about FUTURE designs... who knows what might be designed in the future... for instance, Nissan is working on a car that will keep itself centered in a lane. Without a Bike Lane stripe, that car will use all the WOL, with a Bike Lane stripe, the cyclist may be safe from these "hands off cars."

Of course, who knows... this will be in the future...

Is predictable safer than unpredictable? Is this a trick question? Absolutely!


True enough, but Bill wasn't asking: is predictablity everything?
The only reasonable way to interpret his question is: assuming all other factors and conditions are held constant, is predictability safer than unpredictability?

The problem is that there is always an inherent unpredictable nature to cyclists, as compared to vehicles that don't require balancing. A cyclist must avoid obstacles that can knock him down, and sometimes this requires swerving around them. He needs space around him on both sides at all times just in case he needs to be able to do this. This unpredictability (that applies equally to motorcyclists, by the way) requires passing motorists to provide appropriate lateral spacing between the motor vehicle and the cyclist. The appropriate distance varies depending on various conditions, perhaps speed differential being the most important, but has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a separating stripe.

The problem with Bill's hypothesis is not that it assumes that there is a correlation between predictability and safety (because there is), but because it is based on the premise that the BL stripe makes cyclist behavior more predictable (it doesn't). Worse, most motorists think (incorrectly) the same as Bill, and also believe that the BL stripe makes the cyclist's behavior more predictable. In particular, they all too often assume the cyclist will stay in the BL, and drive accordingly, which all too often means they do not adjust for a proper and safe passing lateral margin when the cyclist they are passing is riding in a BL.

Now, does that mean motorists never pass cyclists too closely when they are sharing a lane? Of course not. It's just a likelihood thing. The stripe generally makes them more comfortable to pass too closely to the cyclist. Now Bill likes to claim that there is a remedy for this: the cyclist riding right outside the stripe, so that part of him is overlapping into the adjacent vehicular lane. I'll acknowledge that helps to some limited extent, but does not alleviate the comfort aspect of the stripe, and, so, motorists are still more likely to pass too closely than they are in a WOL. I've even had police cars buzz me way too closely while I was riding like that in a BL.

Serge

Well, it better be able to detect the presence of a cyclist sharing a lane and adjust accordingly, or it shouldn't be allowed on a roadway where cyclists are allowed.

Even if there is a bike lane, sometimes cyclists must leave the BL (adjacent to the vehicular lane by definition) rather unexpectedly, and if the automated Nissan is tracking the right side of the adjacent lane about to pass a cyclist when this happens, that would be disasterous.

ALL BL's on normal (not limited access) roadways solve nothing for cyclists, never did, and never will.

But until you understand the inherent problems with ALL BLs based on the fundamental concept of a BL, and you can identify the problems with BLs in examples like this one on your own, I don't expect that you'll get it.

I can tell you of a good BL design. I was riding down the street in the BL, parking on my right. Lady throws open the door to her SUV and it doesn't even cross into the bike lane.