Hey! Why isn’t that person on a bike in the bike lane?

[Erin Potter]

Has anyone ever seen a fun and friendly visual that would answer the question in the heading — the “Hey! Why isn’t that person on a bike in the bike lane?”

I have had a few aggressive driver incidents (both personally and reported to me) recently, and realized that quite a few stemmed from the (incorrect) belief that the bike rider had to be in the bike lane, and that the rest of the road is only for people driving cars.

If not, should we make one? Having a positive/friendly, share-able visual that explained that a person on a bike can be in any travel lane that they need to be in for a variety of reasons seems like a better use of time than phoning the police about individual behavior, which may or may not change any minds/improve behavior. Thoughts? Anyone seen or wished for something similar?

Not to say I won’t report bad behavior to the police, but more something to combat a common misconception (and something beyond the Bikes May Use Full Lane).

Topic

[lordofthemark]

@scoot 146561 wrote:

This is good stuff.

Two more big reasons I often use a travel lane in lieu of the bike lane:

1) to keep a safe distance from oblivious pedestrians (who are CONSTANTLY stepping into bike lanes without looking)
2) better visibility at intersections / driveways, to minimize risk of right-cross, right-hook, left-cross, etc. (If not well-designed, many bike lanes are more dangerous than the road.)

Quibble. The bike lane is part of the road (unless it is a Dutch style one elevated up above the road). You mean they can be more dangerous than the general travel lanes.

Note also – I frequently see people on bikes riding in the door zone in places where there is no bike lane – especially where traffic volumes are high and fast. I have even seen that on marshalled WABA rides. I consider doing that more dangerous than riding in a bike lane because a conventional bike lane should at least signal to people in parked cars to expect bikes. (OTOH bike lanes are often striped on slower roads where taking the general travel lane is less uncomfortable).

[Erin Potter]

Thanks for the discussion on this–you all brought up some great points. I’m going to see what we can come up with to distill this into a friendly, share-able message. I’ll let you know what comes of it!

[Erin Potter]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]12809[/ATTACH]
This page from Bikeyface’s new book reminded me of this thread, so I thought I’d share it here. I particularly enjoy the pothole monsters hungry for bikes.

[baiskeli]

@trailrunner 146511 wrote:

This is a good message that needs to get out. One of my worst experiences as a cyclist was when I was riding on South Arlington Mill Drive near Shirlington. An Arlington police officer stopped his car, got out, and told me to get on the Four Mile Run bike path because bikes HAD TO use the path. When I hesitated and said “huh?”, he made it clear that he was going to pound the everliving stuff out of me if I didn’t comply immediately. I did indeed comply, and then called the police department to suggest that they better educate their officers. That was a while ago, so hopefully things have gotten better. I’ve had other incidents over mandatory bike-path misconceptions use that were less life-threatening, so yeah, this is a recurring issue.

Errors by cops are so common that DDOT’s bike manual has a list of actual errors made and what the cop got wrong. This proves two things: the cops need to study up, and DDOT is frickin’ awesome and bold sometimes.

Starting on page 15:

http://ddot.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ddot/publication/attachments/DC-Bike-Law-Pocket-Guide-Oct2012.pdf

[huskerdont]

@Erin Potter 149125 wrote:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]12809[/ATTACH]
This page from Bikeyface’s new book reminded me of this thread, so I thought I’d share it here. I particularly enjoy the pothole monsters hungry for bikes.

Those are simply three separate lines of defense to keep the poor helpless cyclist from accidentally riding up the ramp and into the delivery truck.

[baiskeli]

Part of the problem is people have all kinds of different ideas of what the law is. Sometimes they are from other states, or have outdated notions, or are just ignorant.

I had one guy tell me I shouldn’t be using the sidewalk, and also I needed to dismount when using a crosswalk. The fact that those two beliefs contradict each other didn’t occur to him, nor did anything but insults when I informed him that I knew the law on bicycling far better than he did.

[Steve O]

@baiskeli 149126 wrote:

Errors by cops are so common that DDOT’s bike manual has a list of actual errors made and what the cop got wrong. This proves two things: the cops need to study up, and DDOT is frickin’ awesome and bold sometimes.

Starting on page 15:

http://ddot.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ddot/publication/attachments/DC-Bike-Law-Pocket-Guide-Oct2012.pdf

Check this out. Who wants to give it a try? I’ll provide the $5

[ATTACH=CONFIG]12810[/ATTACH]

[Judd]

@Steve O 149130 wrote:

Check this out. Who want to give it a try? I’ll provide the $5

[ATTACH=CONFIG]12810[/ATTACH]

I always say my name is Steve O when I’m pulled over on a bike. That 5 bucks is as good as mine.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LeprosyStudyGroup]

Interesting. Gonna try buying Trump a bike when he moves in, seems like we could get DC’s infrastructure budget funded.

[jrenaut]

What does “excessive number of riders” mean? How many kids can I carry on my longtail? I’m going to go start borrowing kids until I hit that threshold, you have my $25 Steve O?

[creadinger]

@eminva 146546 wrote:

In a conversation with my boss, it became clear she was very mistaken about what “Bikes May Use Full Lane” meant.

Let’s hope she’s not confused by other plain language signs such as “Stop” and “Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk”. Sheesh!

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Regs typically say you can have as many people on a bike as you have seats: one seat = one rider, two-seat tandem = two riders, etc.

[Author]

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