The Rules

[krazygl00]

@guga31bb 83177 wrote:

But it sounds like if I pass someone with a lot of space then I can do it without dinging and without feeling guilty?
@mstone 83179 wrote:

Nope. Cars have mirrors, cars are expected to stay in their lanes, drivers have a duty to be aware of their surroundings and act predictably on a public road, and in the worst case if you brush another car with your car you’ve caused some property damage. People don’t have mirrors, reasonable people don’t expect that normal people walk in straight lines in a lane, people have a fundamental right to just wander about and stop whenever they want to, and in the worst case someone gets hurt if you sideswipe a pedestrian when scorching past on a bike. Most of the people out on the trail are just wandering around, that’s the nature of a shared use path. If you want to ride like you’re in a velodrome or a street, ride in a velodrome or a street.

I disagree on this point. People have a fundamental right to “just wander about” in a lot of places but a MUP isn’t one of them (unless I have a different perception of the phrase than you). There are rules for peds there too, and they have to follow them and be aware of their surroundings like any other MUP user. I think it is reasonable to expect that the ped keep his/her lane and not make any unpredictable moves.

But of course it does not always work like that and in the end everything is a judgement call of potential risks. If I’m passing a “serious” walker or runner on a uncrowded path and am able to make my pass with an adequate berth well into the opposite lane, I think it is reasonable not to call my pass. If I’m passing a gaggle of tourists with kids wandering about on their own personal “gawkway”, even if they are for the moment keeping to their side of the path, I’m going to call the pass. And this doesn’t even call into question the conundrum of little kids on bikes, who sometimes react to a called pass by turning their heads to the left and swerving into the left lane.

[Rockford10]

Just last week I saw a bike-bike collision on the W&OD because the passing bike failed to call the pass and the being-passed bike failed to signal his turn left.

Right after the Gallows stop, all the bikes and peds were bunched up and sorting out their relative speed. I was third in line. Front guy (Being-Passed Bike) was a little slow. The bike in front of me (Passing Bike) and I wanted to pass the Being-Passed Bike, but just couldn’t do it safely yet. Passing Bike finally(!) sees an opportunity to pass just as we approach Sandburg. Passing Bike moves to the left to pass and Being-Passed Bike turns left onto Sandburg. Because of my position, I could see it all go down in slow-motion. Being-Passed Bike goes down hard in the middle of the Sandburg intersection.

I don’t always call my passes or signal my turns, but I really try to. I don’t want to have to say something like “Your honor, I didn’t think I needed to call that pass.”

[mstone]

You can disagree with it, but can you point to some sort of law that bans the mentally incompetent from using the MUP? There are social conventions which people should follow, but it’s fundamentally on you to control your bike as the superior user. I suspect that if you run down a kid or a mentally disabled person who veered on a MUP and didn’t make any effort to even signal a pass, the jury isn’t going to be very receptive to the “He had no right to be there” argument. Walking isn’t a privilege to be earned or revoked, so, yeah, the walkers have a right to walk that is substantially more difficult to regulate than the vehicle use.

[cyclingfool]

@Steve O 83189 wrote:

Hot damn! If I’m running and I pass a bike, I’m calling that pass all afternoon…

If I’m running, please stop me and tell me to get back on my bike instead.

[mstone]

@cyclingfool 83257 wrote:

If I’m running, please stop me and tell me to get back on my bike instead.

If I’m running, head the same direction as fast as you can.

[baiskeli]

@Steve O 83189 wrote:

Hot damn! If I’m running and I pass a bike, I’m calling that pass all afternoon: “Hey! Passing. Passing. On your left. Yeah, me, the wicked fast runner smokin’ on by! On your left! Yep, goin’ on by! Yowzah!”

I had just climbed that hill. I was not quite at the top, and you caught me at just the right moment to pass me, jogger.

(This really happened to me, right at the top of the Custis climb westbound before crossing I-66).

[Dickie]

@rcannon100 83030 wrote:

Now we are trying to figure out if you are a dick because
(a) one thinks rules that define when someone is a dick are dickish
(b) one thinks there arent enough rules and when given the opportunity one wants local versions of the rules
(c) one thinks the conversation is about the law when whether running a stop sign will lose the respect of car drivers
(d) whether we are all car drivers in the end and cant we call just get a long
(e) whether I have to be riding slower than the slowest guy in freezing saddles (oh that would be me) for it to be considered an Idaho stop
(f) Whether Dickie can ever liberate himself from his dick of a boss
(g) Or Rule 12: “No one cares”
(h) All of the above

You nearly snuck that by me!

[krazygl00]

@mstone 83203 wrote:

You can disagree with it, but can you point to some sort of law that bans the mentally incompetent from using the MUP? There are social conventions which people should follow, but it’s fundamentally on you to control your bike as the superior user. I suspect that if you run down a kid or a mentally disabled person who veered on a MUP and didn’t make any effort to even signal a pass, the jury isn’t going to be very receptive to the “He had no right to be there” argument. Walking isn’t a privilege to be earned or revoked, so, yeah, the walkers have a right to walk that is substantially more difficult to regulate than the vehicle use.

C’mon, please. I’m pretty sure I can find a legal basis that says you have to be able conduct yourself safely on a MUP (and in any number of other public spaces) regardless of mental condition, in order to use it. But notwithstanding that, are you sure that a person who is likely to be unsafe on a MUP because of his mental state is even going to understand and react properly to a called pass? But these scenarios are orthogonal to the central argument.

At issue is whether a cyclist can make a judgement call — and that is what it is, because AFAIK there is no legal requirement — about whether to call passes, based on the conditions. I assert that the answer to this is yes. I think this horse is bleeding from the mouth and rectum, looks terminal, and I admit to some culpability in beating it. As rcannon100 lamented, this started as a discussion about The Rules (Mk II) and has turned into a discussion about rules.

[lordofthemark]

I call almost all my passes. Because I really, really, don’t want to hit a ped, and I assume from experience (not only as a cyclist but as a ped) that peds will either not know the rules (which yes, do require them to keep right on the trails that have a center line, AFAIK) or will momentarily forget them. If I’m passing someone who looks like an experienced runner, who probably won’t hear me over their music anyway, I might not.

As a pedestrian I try to keep a bit further to the right than the legal requirement as I really don’t want to get hit. When I cross to say, look at an interesting plant, I try to do so carefully looking for cyclists.

As a slow cyclist, I prefer strongly that the faster cyclists passing me call their passes, as a bike passing me, even all the way across the center line, can startle me.

Oh, and to get back on topic, my wife and I have now started saying “rule number 5” not only in regard to cycling, or walking, but in regard to some other life issues. “Our friend said she couldn’t abide without real pizza this Passover” “Well, she needs to follow rule number five”

[mstone]

@krazygl00 83305 wrote:

C’mon, please. I’m pretty sure I can find a legal basis that says you have to be able conduct yourself safely on a MUP (and in any number of other public spaces) regardless of mental condition, in order to use it.[/quote]

If you can find a legal basis for saying that the use of sidewalks by pedestrians is restricted, I’ll certainly reevaluate my position. In the meantime we’re left with a Code that (AFAIK) places no burden on pedestrians but which does explicitly require cyclists to yield to pedestrians and signal when passing.

Quote:

At issue is whether a cyclist can make a judgement call — and that is what it is, because AFAIK there is no legal requirement — about whether to call passes, based on the conditions.

Of course there’s a legal requirement. 46.2-904 “A person riding a bicycle … on a sidewalk, shared-use path, … shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian and shall give an audible signal before overtaking and passing any pedestrian.” I didn’t realize there was confusion about that.

Now, I’m not one to blindly follow the Code when it is stupid and (for example) increases the danger to myself or provides no benefit beyond blind obedience to the law. But for this, signaling a pass, why on earth wouldn’t I just do it? Get a bell, ring the bell, problem solved. Everybody might be a little safer, there’s pretty much no chance that everybody is less safe, and there’s essentially zero effort involved.

I guess it might be risky to ring the bell if you’re in an aero tuck while zipping around people at high speed, but if you want to ride like you’re in a velodrome…

[krazygl00]

@mstone 83332 wrote:

If you can find a legal basis for saying that the use of sidewalks by pedestrians is restricted, I’ll certainly reevaluate my position. In the meantime we’re left with a Code that (AFAIK) places no burden on pedestrians but which does explicitly require cyclists to yield to pedestrians and signal when passing.

But we weren’t just talking about pedestrians; you had mentioned the mentally incompetent. I cannot cite the code section, but I’m pretty sure if you are on a sidewalk or path and cannot control yourself from veering wildly around where you shouldn’t go that sometime, somewhere you are going to run afoul of the law and it will rightly be your fault. My overall point was that pedestrian ROW is not license for whatever kind of erratic behavior you please. Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is cycling. There are rules.

Of course there’s a legal requirement. 46.2-904 “A person riding a bicycle … on a sidewalk, shared-use path, … shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian and shall give an audible signal before overtaking and passing any pedestrian.” I didn’t realize there was confusion about that.

Now, I’m not one to blindly follow the Code when it is stupid and (for example) increases the danger to myself or provides no benefit beyond blind obedience to the law. But for this, signaling a pass, why on earth wouldn’t I just do it? Get a bell, ring the bell, problem solved. Everybody might be a little safer, there’s pretty much no chance that everybody is less safe, and there’s essentially zero effort involved.

I guess it might be risky to ring the bell if you’re in an aero tuck while zipping around people at high speed, but if you want to ride like you’re in a velodrome…

Holy crap. I honestly didn’t know it was law. Seriously. All this time I thought it was etiquette.

[mstone]

@krazygl00 83334 wrote:

But we weren’t just talking about pedestrians; you had mentioned the mentally incompetent. I cannot cite the code section, but I’m pretty sure if you are on a sidewalk or path and cannot control yourself from veering wildly around where you shouldn’t go that sometime, somewhere you are going to run afoul of the law and it will rightly be your fault. My overall point was that pedestrian ROW is not license for whatever kind of erratic behavior you please. Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is cycling. There are rules.

Except it isn’t cycling, it’s humans exercising their fundamental right to just move. Given your history with law, you’ll understand if “I’m pretty sure” isn’t a convincing argument. If someone wanders out in front of you and it’s really impossible to avoid the collision, yeah, that’s on them. But if someone wanders in front of you on a path and the reason you couldn’t avoid the collision is that you assumed they were going to stay in a lane because it looks like a little street and people need to stay in the lines, well, that’s on you. It’s on you as the cyclist to make sure there isn’t a collision, not on the pedestrian–because the pedestrian could be anyone, at any level of experience, and they aren’t the ones required to yield. Note that if you were on the road, there is an expectation that the pedestrians shouldn’t be there–that is in the code.

[lordofthemark]

@mstone 83336 wrote:

Except it isn’t cycling, it’s humans exercising their fundamental right to just move. Given your history with law, you’ll understand if “I’m pretty sure” isn’t a convincing argument. If someone wanders out in front of you and it’s really impossible to avoid the collision, yeah, that’s on them. But if someone wanders in front of you on a path and the reason you couldn’t avoid the collision is that you assumed they were going to stay in a lane because it looks like a little street and people need to stay in the lines, well, that’s on you. It’s on you as the cyclist to make sure there isn’t a collision, not on the pedestrian–because the pedestrian could be anyone, at any level of experience, and they aren’t the ones required to yield. Note that if you were on the road, there is an expectation that the pedestrians shouldn’t be there–that is in the code.

Is directionality on a MUP with a painted center line part of the code? IE, on a road, those who do have the right to be on it (motor vehicles and cyclists) are required to drive/ride on the right of the center line. For either to salmon (is it called salmoning when a motor vehicle proceeds in the wrong direction?) is, I am quite certain, a violation of the law.

If it is in the code, would not a pedestrian moving in the wrong direction on a MUP be in violation? If it is not in the code, is a cyclist riding on the left of the center line (not merely passing) NOT be in violation?

Similarly it is not legal for road users to obstruct traffic by simply stopping in the road, IIUC. Applies both to motor vehicles and cyclists. Does one (whether a ped or a cyclist) have a right to simply stop on the trail? So that the guidance to get to the side of the trail when stopped, and to keep to the right of the center line, only a suggestion, and not a legal requirement?

[Terpfan]

Ha, this thread is still going despite the original point being the joking damn the rules, fight the man.

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 83366 wrote:

Is directionality on a MUP with a painted center line part of the code?[/quote]

AFAIK, no.

Quote:

Similarly it is not legal for road users to obstruct traffic by simply stopping in the road, IIUC. Applies both to motor vehicles and cyclists. Does one (whether a ped or a cyclist) have a right to simply stop on the trail? So that the guidance to get to the side of the trail when stopped, and to keep to the right of the center line, only a suggestion, and not a legal requirement?

AFAIK, yes.

In theory, there are some trails (like W&OD or MVT) where an entity with statutory authority to create regulations (like NVRPA or NPS) could create rules with a penalty associated with them, but I don’t see any such in their published regulations (http://www.nvrpa.org/uploads/Files/NVRPARegulations.pdf). So they’re covered only by the “rules” (http://www.nvrpa.org/uploads/Files/RULESRevised.pdf page 25) which, if violated, mean that you “may” have to leave.

That said, I’d assume that the courts would factor in your adherence to the guidance when determining whether you were behaving reasonably, even if not following the guidance isn’t specifically punishable in itself. Which is exactly how things should work–your liability should depend on whether you were being responsible or negligent, and your behavior and the behavior of the other party should both be considered.

Note that this is the normal state from the standpoint of natural (and common) law. Until cars came along, this is exactly how traffic worked–you were responsible for not running over people, and you could be held liable if you did. It’s an aberration that we instituted a system where people in the natural state of moving on their own two feet are banned from public space, even though we’ve gotten used to it (and even expect to be banned and are pleasantly surprised when we’re actually allowed to walk around ).

Edit to add: see, “RULES”. I’m 100% on-topic.

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