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by kotakota 4611 days ago
The cyclist should pull over and wait until the road is clear or ride in roads with lower speed limits and less traffic. The cyclist is the one impending traffic and therefore should be the one to be inconvenienced. Also the cyclist is the one who endangered their own life by deciding to ride in the street with cars. Even though cyclists have the right to be on the road they are still expected to fallow the traffic laws including signaling turns, stopping at stop signs and lights, and not impeding traffic flow. If they fallowed the laws they wouldn't be in danger. The vast majority of bicycle/vehicle accidents happen at intersections where surprise surprise cyclists very rarely fallow the law.
2 comments

Are we now in magic land? Whats up with you and the other commentators in the immediate vicinity making up laws like "impeding traffic flow"?

If you dead stop and block a lane, you are breaking the law. And I see it plenty of times every day with delivery drivers, who also treat cycle paths as extended parking spaces.

Not riding the speed limit is simply not breaking a "traffic law", and I can not the imagine the state of delusion you have to be in to think it is.

Impeding traffic flow is a law in most states and counties and is frequently referenced in accident trials definitions.uslegal.com/i/impeding-traffic/

You should probably at least google something before you immediately claim its made up. Oh but wait that would be using common sense

I cycle around the city in Barcelona, where the drivers are often arseholes.

In a dense city like Barcelona, the traffic doesn't go so fast, and I can usually keep up with most cars, except when accelerating from lights. That doesn't matter. If a car is behind, me they seem to think they have a right to drive too close and honk their horn at me to tell me to get out of the road, even though they will be stuck behind the car that is 20 meters ahead of me.

I understand what your saying. I live in Chicago and things are pretty similar. I'm not saying that all drivers are correct in the way that they act. Many drivers are jerks about it but at the same time many bikers are jerks about the way they ride in traffic. A major reason drivers simply want to get around a cyclist is to avoid having to deal with the chance of hitting them if the swerve suddenly. Is the way they go about It right? Probably not but if you are going to put drivers in a situation where they have to worry about hitting you then its their right to be rude.

You have to realize that if a driver hits another car going 20 mph in city traffic chances are no one will be seriously hurt. Someone will likely get a ticket between $50 and $200 and their insurance goes up. Now when you throw a bike in that accident the rider is likely going to be seriously injured if not killed. No one wants to be in a situation where they have to worry about seriously hurting or killing someone. Most drivers simply want to get around the biker and avoid it but bikers don't make that easy and many of them act like they own the road. You just have to remember as a cyclists that you are the one who chose to put your safety at risk by riding in traffic.