Commuter's Corner #9: The Day I Decided
Once upon a time, I believed the conventional wisdom about riding a bike in the street: ride to the right “as far as practicable”, and for crying out loud, don’t take the lane. For years and years, that’s what I did. I also avoided busy streets, and instead took neighborhood routes, you know, them streets with poor visibility and curves and hills and so forth.
Eventually, I decided that was a bum steer and I began using arterial roads because, well, they took you where you wanted to go, with fewer stop signs, speed bumps, blind turns, and so forth. And I rode in the gutter, or as far as practicable over by it.
But then a worse problem began to become evident. Cars passing me sometimes turned right. And drivers in those cars usually knew I was there and had enough sense to wait for me to pass, or ensured they were far enough ahead of me before turning. But not all of them.
One day, a suburban came up from behind, passed me, failed to signal, and promptly turned right. I braked hard and barely managed to avoid the vehicle. I had been riding in a bike lane. Wait, wasn’t taking the lane supposed to be suicidal?
Even so, I blew that experience off as a once-in-awhile driver negligence. Then it happened again. Same deal: a suburban came past me, this time failed to signal virtually until turning right, and this time I ran into the turning vehicle, but stayed upright. The vehicle desisted in its turn, and I continued on. No, no police reports filed. What are those for, anyway? Best practices, what?
Then came the Day I Decided. Yes, you guessed it, it happened again. Car came up from behind me, passed me, failed to signal for the impending right turn, turned right, and this time I had nowhere to go: the car eased into me, and I went down, fairly slowly and ignominiously. This was not a high-speed collision with broken body or bike parts; it was more like a slow-motion fall and roll over on the sidewalk. Even so, this was totally stupid, because the drivers were acting negligently, because they didn’t see me, because I was over in the gutter.
That’s when I began hearing the crash statistics: the most common car-on-bike collisions are the “right hook”, where a motor vehicle turns right, and the cyclist runs into the motor vehicle. This happens when… cyclists ride to the right. Especially when there’s no bike lane.
So, I decided: no more riding in the back alleys, no more riding in the gutters. If there’s a bike lane I’ll use it, but if there ain’t one, I’m taking the lane. Then I’m highly visible and impossible to ignore. And you know what? No more right hooks! No more collisions! No more near collisions! And look at all this room I get! Woo-HOO!
But what about the bike lane? I ride close to the LEFT side, “as close as practicable”, for the same reason: I’m farther into the field of vision of the motorists, and if need be, I have more room for maneuver. And you know what? They pay attention! Life is good!