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iamnotlarry | 8 years ago

I think you are making the wrong argument here. A bicyclist should have control of their bike. If there is injury involved, that is on the cyclist. (Dooring is another issue.)

But I think the problem becomes very clear if you allow another car to pull up next to the one in the bike lane and stop in the middle of the lane to berate the first car. Just for 30 seconds or so. If somebody rear-ended that car, the person in the moving vehicle should get a ticket. But what should be the consequence to the person stopped in the middle of the lane? Would the mayor be so casual to "30 second" stops if car lanes were blocked by parked cars 40% of the time?

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petre|8 years ago

I once had to go around a car stopped in a bike lane, slid and fell badly while trying to re-enter the somewhat elevated bike lane (about two inches from the road - it's like a red painted sidewalk, two feet wide, with a bevel on the edge). The driver was inside the car having a phone conversation, so he was probably stopped there for just 30 seconds - enough to cause a bicycle accident.

vsl|8 years ago

You could have, you know, stopped and waited for the car to start moving. As cars do when blocked.

A post elsewhere hear said it already, but it’s my experience too: cyclist break laws constantly, due to apparent feeling of entitlement to keep moving fast, regardless of the traffic, lights etc. the thought of just stopping safely for a few seconds didn’t even cross your mind in the situation.

iamnotlarry|8 years ago

No. Sorry. They did not cause an accident. It is important that your understand this.

Note that I am not sympathetic to the driver of the car. They probably deserve criticism, but not blame for your slide. I know that you want to blame somebody that is not yourself. That's human. But when any pedestrian, bike, car, airplane, drone, skateboard, etc. runs into a stationary pedestrian, bike, car, airplane, drone, skateboard, house, fence, animal, etc. it is almost certainly the fault of the moving object's operator.

In your case, you failed to change lanes safely. It sounds like you really blame the lane design for having a bevel between lanes. It's interesting to me that the bevel probably has almost zero effect on cars/trucks but a significant effect on bikes. That seems like a bike-hostile design. The fact that it is only two feet wide seems questionable to me. A slow-moving bike would also encourage you to change lanes, navigating the bevel twice.