SHARE THE ROAD! Bicycle thread

[The B]

And, going back to the original question: You still haven't established how any of this refutes my statement. You posted those statutes as though they contradicted what I said.... they still don't.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Out here in the sticks, we have almost nobody who actually tries, or needs to get anywhere for normal business on a bicycle. What we do have is a bunch of dilettante, wannabe Lance Armstrongs (I call them "Sweaty People in Clown Suits"®) who want to go sight seeing. The only problem with that is that most of our roads have little or no shoulder, and are flanked by 6 foot wide and 4 foot deep ditches. The space available for a bicycle is literally the width of the fog line. And yet, people are willing to risk their own lives, and the lives of me and my family, in order to go sightseeing on their bicycles. The traffic is doing 55 mph and they are doing 15 mph. Somebody following them in the opposing lane gets impatient and pulls out without enough clearance and MY day gets ruined. Or I'm following a large truck and can't see the bicyclist, and at the last instant the truck swerves out around him, and I'm left with no time to react. Nobody should be risking lives in order to see the scenery from their bicycles.

 

[The B]

Out here in the sticks, we have almost nobody who actually tries, or needs to get anywhere for normal business on a bicycle. What we do have is a bunch dilettante, wannabe Lance Armstrongs (I call them "Sweaty People in Clown Suits"®) who want to go sight seeing. The only problem with that is that most of our roads have little or no shoulder, and are flanked by 6 foot wide and 4 foot deep ditches. The space available for a bicycle is literally the width of the fog line. And yet, people are willing to risk their own lives, and the lives of me and my family, in order to go sightseeing on their bicycles. The traffic is doing 55 mph and they are doing 15 mph. Somebody following them in the opposing lane gets impatient and pulls out without enough clearance and MY day gets ruined. Or I'm following a large truck and can't see the bicyclist, and at the last instant the truck swerves out around him, and I'm left with no time to react. Nobody should be risking lives in order to see the scenery from their bicycles.

Country roads are pretty much the safest place to ride. Very little traffic, few intersections, usually good line of sight, very easy to pass you, and very low on multi-tasking demands. Just follow the fog line! Doesn't get any safer or easier than that.

Do people riding horseback on your country roads also upset you? Do tractors? Does the mailman? Does the newspaper deliverer? Garbage truck?

 

[Martini_Up]

I've addressed you where I felt you were wrong or you had outrageous assumptions.

You marginalized / ignored them, ultimately with claim that motor vehicles are not bikes.

I argued they were. You again held to your assertion and tried to use my own posted statutes as the basis.

I patiently showed you where Oregon State disagreed with you and by default, so did Multnomah County.

You STILL want to argue about it claiming IF it stands (twice lost mind you) and you ask what does the Oregon Supreme Court have to say. All awhile you claim to have studied the law on this matter. I have not studied this particular part of the Oregon Statutes but know that case law is where the rubber meets the road and it took me 5 second to find it.

You can continue spouting off but honestly, you've lost all credibility for me and I have nothing more to offer... apart from I agree with ZigZagZeke's sentiments above.

Good evening.

 

[ripcity]

Country roads are pretty much the safest place to ride. Very little traffic, few intersections, usually good line of sight, very easy to pass you, and very low on multi-tasking demands. Just follow the fog line! Doesn't get any safer or easier than that.

Do people riding horseback on your country roads also upset you? Do tractors? Does the mailman? Does the newspaper deliverer? Garbage truck?

Just something about bicyclist that annoy me more than any. The other things you listed, other than horseback riding are accepted easier due to the fact they are doing a job, and not just sight seeing. And I don't see a whole lot of people horseback riding.

 

[The B]

I've addressed you where I felt you were wrong or you had outrageous assumptions.

You marginalized / ignored them, ultimately with claim that motor vehicles are not bikes.

I argued they were. You again held to your assertion and tried to use my own posted statutes as the basis.

I patiently showed you where Oregon State disagreed with you and by default, so did Multnomah County.

You STILL want to argue about it claiming IF it stands (twice lost mind you) and you ask what does the Oregon Supreme Court have to say. All awhile you claim to have studied the law on this matter. I have not studied this particular part of the Oregon Statutes but know that case law is where the rubber meets the road and it took me 5 second to find it.

You can continue spouting off but honestly, you've lost all credibility for me and I have nothing more to offer... apart from I agree with ZigZagZeke's sentiments above.

Good evening.

I'll concede- some obscure appellate case from 2002 appears to establish 811.130 as applicable to bikes.

Lost credibility.... I said right off the bat I'm just a dude with a familiarity with the ORS and an interest on the topic. I also said I'd back up all my opinions with the ORS- and I did. You pull out State v Potter and I've "lost credibility."

Cheap shot... but go on and run away with it- that's all you were shooting for. These debates can be FUN, but some guys type with their dicks.

BTW- you still haven't established how your initial post refutes mine, nor how (short of deliberately refusing to use a bike lane, like Mr. Potter) it could realistically be applied to a cyclist doing his diligence. I don't think actually contributing to the discussion was your goal, though.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Country roads are pretty much the safest place to ride. Very little traffic, few intersections, usually good line of sight, very easy to pass you, and very low on multi-tasking demands. Just follow the fog line! Doesn't get any safer or easier than that.

Do people riding horseback on your country roads also upset you? Do tractors? Does the mailman? Does the newspaper deliverer? Garbage truck?

There are 9,000 cars a day going past my house in a 45 mph zone doing between 55 and 70 mph. It's not safe for a bicycle. I think in 14 years I've seen one horseback rider. People generally think more of their horses than to put them out in this traffic. Somebody on a tractor, or delivering the mail has a job to do. The garbage gets picked up at 5 am, and we don't subscribe to any of the idiotic rags they call newspapers here. I think it's the fact that these people are risking their lives and mine for no productive purpose. I'm a big one for weighing the risk/reward benefit. There's just not enough on the reward side to be doing this, unless you're a narcissistic fool.

 

[The B]

Has a cyclist ever been hit out there in those 14 years?

There are definitely areas I won't ride, if I think it unsafe. Could very well be your road is unsafe- I have no idea where you live. But I think people often deem activities as a lot more dangerous than they actually are, if they haven't done it.

 

[Oregonhunter5]

I run on the streets. I move to the side further, in the ditch, when people drive by. Every once and a while people swerve at me. The best I can give them is a nice snotty, thick, luge to the windshield. I'm always waiting for them to turn around and want to scrap. I'm always willing. "I'm a little more muscular than the average runner". But, when I come up on a biker, that's 3 feet into the road, where there's no bike lane, I get upset. If they move over when I come up, ok, fine. But if they don't, it's not smart. I guess I admit my weakness and think, a large portion of those bikers think there lance Armstrong. Kinda funny. They all gotta have there special clothes on.

 

[John H]

How do you share the road with bicyclists?

I always share ( my thick black sooted diesel smoke )

 

[Certaindeaf]

I always triple look for them and assume the worst.. even when it's dark and raining (lol) on a windy country road or even 101.. it's surprising the amount of bicyclists killed on 101.
Not long ago (and I think it was on 101), some dood decided to kick a socker ball from here to Brazil.. he didn't get too far. dead man

 

[MTpockets]

The answer to anything is a new law. Flags for all.



...Hmmmm I would be a rich flag salesman in China.

 

[Oregonhunter5]

Ever seen that picture of Obama riding a bike?!
Enough said

 

[The B]

I personally don't wear "team colors." I'm not on a racing team. I don't know if all these solo riders out there are on racing teams, but a lot of them are. If you only have a couple of jerseys, and they happen to be your team jerseys, I guess that's what you put on to go do a training ride. I still wear plain black bike shorts and either a white, black, or orange UA shirt (that's what's in my closet). Cycling clothes are crazy expensive... if I had team kit, I guess I'd probably end up wearing it just to avoid having to spend $100 on another cycling jersey.

Plus, a lot of these guys have a lot of pride in their racing teams. Just like any group activity, they want to rep their set.

There are some guys that just buy colorful/sponsor jerseys and wear them. I don't get it, but I try not to judge.

 

[Jamie6.5]

If you're writing books/pamphlets about the subject of bike safety Ben, I hope you're including at least a short statement on "the rule of tonnage."
It's actually a term used in boat and marine traffic and handling, but is very appropriate in the bike vs car debate. Basically, it means even if you have the right to do something, you're a damn fool to do it when faced with the potential for catastrophic results.
Like a 1 ton sailboat setting a course that intersects with a 300 ton freighter, and then expecting the freighter to give way. Sure, they may be "in the right," but the damage done isn't worth it.

Next up in my beliefs about bike riders, is they should be required to carry some form of liability insurance if they want to use the roads.
I have had two clients with more than $1000 in damage done to their cars by bicycles that failed to yield the right of way, and collided with them. In both cases, the Eugene Police told them "good luck" in trying to collect for the damages, and would do nothing. In only one of the cases did the EPD officer even bother to cite the biker, and that's just wrong.

Lastly, bikers need to do a better job of policing themselves, instead of making excuses for each other, and taking every opportunity to tell car and truck drivers about bicycle rights. Nobody wants to hit a bicyclist, but if they're going to hang their delicate butts out in traffic among two-ton vehicles and flaunt the law(s) they should shut the h*!! up when they do stupid stuff and get knocked on those butts. I've seen them flip off drivers they felt didn't respect their right to ride on the roads, and then yell at pedestrians that didn't get out of their way on the sidewalk.

In Eugene and Portland it isn't even safe to open your car door anymore after parallel parking.
Roads were developed, designed, paid for and implemented to facilitate car and truck traffic. If bikers are going to demand bike paths and bike lanes, and ask for DOT dollars to fund them, they should be forced to use them, and stay out of areas of high motor vehicle traffic and congestion, and off of roads without them.
They only make a bad situation worse when they fail to do so.

That's my 3.5 cents worth.

 

[The B]

For clarity - it's a quick reference of laws (and now an addendum featuring a bit of case law, as soon as I update it)... not bike safety. All I've done is pull the relevant ORSs out and put them in a convenient place.

I guarantee you a bicyclist doesn't want you to hit him more than you don't want to hit him. It's possible you've observed reckless behavior, but it's also possible you've observed behavior you didn't understand, and assumed was reckless when it's actually the best practice. We often run into people who think we're supposed to ride on the sidewalk, or that we're not allowed to use left turn lanes... etc. It's impossible to know what's going through peoples minds most of the time.

As to your other complaints - I understand these are common complaints, but, as I've already stated in other places in this thread, you're talking about a small number of bad apples that give the rest of the community a bad name. But here's some info for you-

---

811.490 Improper opening or leaving open of vehicle door; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of improper opening or leaving open a vehicle door if the person does any of the following:

(a) Opens any door of a vehicle unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so and it can be done without interference with the movement of traffic, or with pedestrians and bicycles on sidewalks or shoulders.

(b) Leaves a door open on the side of a vehicle available to traffic, or to pedestrians or bicycles on sidewalks or shoulders for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.

(2) The offense described in this section, improper opening or leaving open a vehicle door, is a Class D traffic violation. [1983 c.338 §655; 1985 c.16 §320]

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And this has been the law since at least 1985- you do have a duty to ensure you're not going to hit anyone or anything, or create a hazard, with a car door when parallel parking.

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814.420 Failure to use bicycle lane or path; exceptions; penalty. (1) Except as provided in subsections (2) and (3) of this section, a person commits the offense of failure to use a bicycle lane or path if the person operates a bicycle on any portion of a roadway that is not a bicycle lane or bicycle path when a bicycle lane or bicycle path is adjacent to or near the roadway.

(2) A person is not required to comply with this section unless the state or local authority with jurisdiction over the roadway finds, after public hearing, that the bicycle lane or bicycle path is suitable for safe bicycle use at reasonable rates of speed.

(3) A person is not in violation of the offense under this section if the person is able to safely move out of the bicycle lane or path for the purpose of:

(a) Overtaking and passing another bicycle, a vehicle or a pedestrian that is in the bicycle lane or path and passage cannot safely be made in the lane or path.

(b) Preparing to execute a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.

(c) Avoiding debris or other hazardous conditions.

(d) Preparing to execute a right turn where a right turn is authorized.

(e) Continuing straight at an intersection where the bicycle lane or path is to the right of a lane from which a motor vehicle must turn right.

(4) The offense described in this section, failure to use a bicycle lane or path, is a Class D traffic violation. [1983 c.338 §700; 1985 c.16 §338; 2005 c.316 §3]

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Bicyclists ARE required to use bike lanes, if they exist, on the rider's route. Note the exceptions - they're used a lot, as the bike lanes are rarely swept, and cars parked immediately parallel to a bike lane are a potential serious hazard.

 

[BAMCIS]

. . . . . . . . - what exactly do you have against bicycles?

They don't pay their fair share, and the sense of entitlement they have is amazing. These are the first two that comes to (my) mind first.

 

[Jamie6.5]

As to your other complaints - I understand these are common complaints, but, as I've already stated in other places in this thread, you're talking about a small number of bad apples that give the rest of the community a bad name.

I don't know where you're from, but you need to spend some time in Eugene observing that "small number of bad apples."
In my experience, they comprise a large number of bike riders, and are frequently the majority.

But thanks Ben.
Especially for proving my point.

If bicycle riders had to take a course and be licensed like motorcycle riders do, we'd all be better off on the roads.

 

[The B]

They don't pay their fair share, and the sense of entitlement they have is amazing. These are the first two that comes to (my) mind first.

What "fair share" isn't being paid?

You feel they are less entitled to use the road than cars, but they know they're just as entitled to use the roads as you are, so it seems like they have a larger sense of entitlement than you think they should have.

If you accepted that they're equally entitled to the road- to be on it, to use it's features, to observe it's laws and enjoy it's freedoms, I suspect you'd suddenly stop seeing them as self-entitled pricks, and start seeing them as just other vehicles on the road.

That's how it worked for me.

 

[BAMCIS]

Ben, I know you have a dog in the fight, so I also know you will not understand what I meant because you simply do not want to.