Good afternoon, Students! Welcome to the first in a series of
articles on some of the basics of courteous, and safe, urban bicycle
riding. I should probably mention that this is a set of guidelines that
KT of Vélo Vogue and I are hashing together and that they are 100%
biased and based in our desire to no longer be more frustrated with our
fellow riders than we are with the silly drivers who insist on getting
behind the wheel with a latté and an Iphone and a lap dog after getting 2
hours of sleep each night for a week. When we realized we were
complaining more about bicycle on bicycle interactions lately than we
were about vehicular traffic we decided it was time to write something
about it.
Today's lesson is about my biggest
frustration with other riders on the road; passing on the inside. One
of the things that those of us who took Driver's Education learned early
on, before we were allowed behind the wheel of a car, is that it is
illegal and dangerous to pass another vehicle on the right. This
applies especially to bicycles in the bike lane.
The
usual configuration of a bicycle lane in the United States is to the
right of the car lane and to the left of the parking lane. In San
Francisco, where there are many one way streets with the bike lane on
the left side of the road, this could also mean passing on the left so I
will just call it passing on the inside. Most bicycle lanes are not
wide enough to ride two abreast. To pass a rider who is ahead of you,
you should make sure it is safe to leave the lane and enter the car lane
to the left. From there you can accelerate to pass the forward rider
and then re-enter the lane ahead.
The
rider with the green backpack is doing the right thing. He exited the
lane, entered traffic when safe and accelerated around the riders in
front of him before reentering the lane.
It
is NEVER acceptable to force your way forward by squeezing between the
forward rider and the parked cars! This is a guaranteed way to push
someone into traffic. The female rider with the polka dot helmet would
be in the wrong if she tried to pass the rider with the black backpack
on his right.
In
this bicycle lane above, just don't pass. Unless you can safely get
into the traffic lane yourself, trying to squeeze through in the bicycle
lane will push the forward rider into traffic. This is not OK.
In
the above picture, you see something really common, and really awful,
that happens all the time in San Francisco. The guy in the white shirt
is riding on the inside of the lane. If he decides to overtake the
woman in the brown jacket she will be forced to move to the left into
traffic. Especially if she does not know he is there. If she is an
inexperienced rider she will most likely overcompensate and swerve quite
far into the car lane without looking. Many times I have found myself
actually being touched by the shoulder of someone suddenly passing me on
the inside!
