That's contrary to 18 years of riding experience. I'm always off the line first, and usually across the intersection first.

As to "lane splitting"... No, the keep to right side rule applies. Lane splitting is riding down the space made between two lanes by normal traffic flow & is unsafe.

As as for passing on right, I'm referring to vehicles passing too close on the left when cyclist is turning right.

At intersections around here and most places actually there are frequently smaller streets & driveways near large intersections. You can't turn there and not get stuck half way across unless you stick to right side of lane after turning & move up! If you don't move up you get run over and often the traffic light won't get triggered either if people are too stupid to pull up next to you over the sensor. This is the real world we have to deal with, not some class on theory. Drivers mostly do not realize they need to treat us as just another vehicle. This is the problem with using bicycle as sole/peimary means of transportation in the US... People in their cars & trucks have no clue about those laws and often are poor drivers on top, then with the cell phones and the makeup... It's not for the faint of heart and yes I've been hit by a distracted driver. Things need to change, and if you disagree with my police & judge vetted approach to intersections that's totally ok. I do what I do & you do what you do. Not everyone has the same way of doing things & I'd never force anyone to step out of their comfort zone. :)

And as for making a situation unsafe, I'd say the taxpayers of PA do a fine job of that by not electing people that put the gas tax high enough to cover proper road construction so there are fewer potholes to repair to begin with. Me personally, I'm the one diffusing the unsafe situation. I guess you have to actually see these intersections to fully understand. There is not enough room to play like you're a car & people WILL drive erratically to scare you just to make a point. I'm glad it seems you don't have to deal with this kinda crap. It's not fun.

- Andy

In most states AFRAP does not apply if you are going "at the normal speed of traffic". Thus lane-splitting through lower speed or stationary car traffic is not illegal. I do it many times every commute. It's also fun!

*The space between two lanes of slower-moving traffic is, IMO, far safer than the door zone on the right.
*Lane-splitting prevents the single most deadly bicycle-motorvehicle interaction in my city: the right hook.

Well, the place where i do this is at intersections, never anywhere else. I want a way out, and a shoulder or sidewalk etc is a pretty sure way out. At the intersection, right turn only lane to my right, i'm in straight lane & to my left are two left turn lanes. You can't be in that right lane and go straight, as it would both be unsafe and illegal in at particular spot. In town i try to stay right & ring bell to alert people who might be opening door (you are supposed to look before opening your door when stopped or parked along a lane of travel), but i also go to middle of lane when i feel no one behind me will try and run me down to affix their ego.

- Andy

I care little about the law. My behavior focuses on my safety. Those two concerns are often at odds given the laws on the books.

If the lane is real narrow before and after the intersection and the line of cars is short then I stop behind a line of cars and don't go till they do. I'm thus avoiding having the drivers that I pass faced with the difficult task of passing me just after the green light.

But at most intersections I filter to the front. Were I to stop behind a long line of cars, I'll be holding cars up as they race to make it thru the intersection when the light changes. And I can usually give drivers an easy pass once I make it thru the intersection. Often, there's a turn-only lane to the right after the intersection and I can move into that for 100 yards or so and let people by. Or the lanes are wide enough that safe passes are not difficult.

If you want to motivate people for unsafe passing, stay way back in the traffic flow as the cars are trying to make it through the light. That will frustrate drivers and lead to more conflict than requiring they pass you after the intersection.

Sometimes I pull entirely out of the road after the intersection if I feel I'm holding people up. But that does not happen much in practice. I'm not too concerned about making cars wait a little bit - but I'm also not in so big a hurry that I can't pull out of the way in situations where I'm delaying them significantly.

No, they don't allow bicycles to pass on vehicles on the right...not any statutes that I've seen. States and municipalities usually ignore the practice which means that if you do it and get squished, it's your own fault. No lawsuit for you!

Bicycle Law Articles | Oregon Bicycle Laws | Swanson, Thomas, Coon & Newton
(c) Overtaking and passing upon the right is permitted if the overtaking vehicle is a bicycle that may safely make the passage under the existing conditions.

thus, in OR cyclists can overtake on the left and right. oregon also allows multiple cyclists to share a lane. since the statute that prohibits lane splitting specifically refers to motorcycles (and motorvehicles) i think it's clear that lawmakers did not wish to make lane splitting by cyclists illegal.

splitting lanes is also not illegal in CA for both cyclists and motorcycles. it's been a while since i checked but other states also had similar legal situations.

So what do you mean by "clear downtown"? Get across downtown or get out of a specific area? Either way, I have questions on your speed and the speed of traffic. Let's say you have clear roads and can average 25 mph. In 7 minutes, you can cover 3 miles. A more realistic speed without clear roads, filtering to the front of every line, ignoring stop signs and light, etc. is 12 to 15 mph. That's covering 1.4 to 1.75 miles. So the cars are moving at between 2mph and 6 mph? That's got to be one of the slowest commuter speeds in the world!

On the other hand, let's say you are traveling from the west side of Portland to the east side from I-5 to I-205, about 5 miles. In really bad traffic, I can see it taking 30 minutes by car to cover that distance. However, to cover it in 7 minutes, you'd have to travel at 48mph.

Okay, I'll give you that one for Oregon law. I've not seen the same in any other state however.

A, unless the line of cars is huge and a bike lane/wide shoulder exists, then B. If you do B, watch for right hooks.

No bike lanes but from what I've seen they're not much safer than riding on the shoulder of a road, especially the ones that go through intersections with a right turn lane (traffic on both sides, clueless drivers in the left lane wanting to go right..not comfortable with that). If I'm going straight, I just stay in my "lane" aka the far right shoulder of the road, stop at the corner and wait for the green light. If I'm turning left, and there's not much traffic I'll get over to the left turn lane(where applicable) or take the lane with my arm out to signal to the drivers. If there's lots of traffic out, I'll just ride up to the corner and cross when it's safe as I would do if I was walking. I've had a few close calls and would rather be safe than sorry

my route from sw 6th to the hawthorne bridge is less than 2 miles.

It's called gridlock, and is pretty common around here. That's on a normal day. Throw an accident, fire or other emergency into the mix, and you can sit in traffic literally not moving for an hour or more. Probably don't get that in smaller cities that have sufficient infrastructure and alternate routes. In DC, there are so many chokepoints (mostly bridges), a small incident can have wide ranging impact. For example, this winter there was a bomb threat at the Swedish embassy in Georgetown, and all traffic in a 2 mile vicinity literally ground to a halt, bikes and peds excepted. I happened to be stuck in a car that day, and was regretting every moment.

I used to live for those Gridlock opportunities! I'd pass everyone up on my bike and get home just in time to see all of those cars I just passed on TV :D

Interesting strategy, Thanks!

i sometimes pass all those cars on my way home and then head out to happy hour and pass them all again.

:beer:

There is a joke about a secretary (when there were such things) whose boss informs her that his next business trip is going to be in Jamaica. Via cruise ship. She knows what that means, so she goes shopping. One of her stops is at the pharmacy where she gets birth control and sea sickness pills. When she gets to the counter the clerk looks at her purchases and says "erm.. miss, if it affects you like that... why do it? If my opinion of drivers was as low as many who post here, I absolutely could not throw my leg over a top tube and sally forth, armed with nothing more than a Hero Go Pro. Some of the various "strategies" that some of you employ to "keep safe" are laughable and absurd. They are more akin to some of the rituals that competitive athletes get attached to before events. As a cyclist you have the potential to be one of the safer road users! In a car, not so much. There was recently a horrific head on collision between a Fed Ex truck and a loaded bus. Bicycles don't get involved in many head on collisions because their "proper" positioning AFRAP creates a buffer zone of parallel traffic to bear the brunt of interactions with oncoming traffic. Likewise there are fewer cyclists rear ended than cars! The "proper" positioning of bicycles AFRAP takes them out of the normal path of a driver intent on rear ending someone. There have been vehicular cyclists rear ended because they felt the bicycle lane to be unsafe. Not that many, but it has happened. The majority of cyclists killed or injured have only themselves to blame for their misfortune. Absolutely, motorists can, and do, stupid things that impact cyclist safety. It is the response to the threat that matters. Some of the responses cyclists adopt to the constant threat of motorist malfeasance actually put them at more risk for injury or death, not less. Just saying.

H

Statistically you are wrong, in motorist bicyclist collisions, the motorist is at fault the majority of the time. And being rear ended because of taking the whole lane is a lot less likely than being right hooked because you are in the bike lane, which to drivers means you do not exist, so a soon as they pass you, you are gone from their memory.

The difference is that, yes you might piss them off being in their lane, but most are not murderers, they will be forced to contend with you in traffic, and like I said before, when you are riding on the side they notice you at first, but you completely escape their thought process as soon as possible, so then they do dumb things like veer into your lane, right hook, parallel park, etc. all because you never entered into their thought process as a road user.

This us coming from a guy who very rarely needs to take the lane btw

This is only partially true. The majority of cyclists hit by motorists were in intersections or crosswalks. Half of them were behaving like pedestrians at the time they were hit. Half of the other half might have been able to avoid the collision by yielding to the offending motorist (riding defensively). Cyclists seem obsessed with safety on the open road, and the majority of accidents happen, in town, at cross-walks. That's my point. What does "taking the lane" have to do with being right hooked?

H