wturber
1 MW
Chalo said:wturber said:"Yield the right of way" seems to be a concept that is absent with this group.
Learn to distinguish between yielding the right-of-way to someone who has it, and surrendering the right-of-way to someone who thinks his supersedes yours. If you make the distinction, I think you'll find that most assertive cyclists do the former, just not the latter. If it helps, imagine the cyclist is a street sweeper or construction vehicle that goes 15mph. If his behavior makes sense in that context, then it makes sense.
I live near a golf course and deal with slow maintenance vehicles on our local streets all the time. To a person, the drivers of these vehicles always stay to the right and make it as easy as practical for traffic to get around them and/or they stop on the right when the road widens to allow backed up traffic pass them. On average. two or more cyclists on these same streets do not do these things.
I'm not sure why you seem to think I need to learn how to distinguish yielding the right-of-way to someone who has it and surrendering it to someone who merely thinks they have it. The cyclists obstructing traffic tonight did not have the right of way. Even if I grant the practical benefits of riding groups breaking stop sign laws by a group acting like one vehicle (it will clear the intersection faster) and set that aside (and that there were two groups), many of these riders were simply violating a number of traffic laws. You are only allowed to ride more than two across on exclusive bike paths not on streets. And if you are "slower traffic" you are required to stay as far to the right as practical. Given the nice bike lane on this road, you can do that easily without slowing down other traffic.
Chalo said:In my neighborhood, it's a constant low level annoyance to negotiate with motorists who cede their proper right-of-way at 4-way stops. I appreciate their obliging gesture, but it all works better if we follow the customary procedure.
I see the same thing here. But I suspect that a lot if this is a result of drivers seeing that the typical cyclist can be expected to run stop signs while barely slowing down. The vast majority of drivers don't want to run over a cyclist. So they over-react and cede the right of way when they really shouldn't. And yes, this is mildly annoying. I mitigate this to some extent by using physical posture (up on my pedals and foot out as though I'm going to plant it on the ground) that most drivers seem to recognize as an indication that I'm preparing to come to a stop. Others, of course, just don't understand how the rules of the road apply to cyclists.