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Anyone who chooses to bike in the roadway is fine by me if they are keeping pace with traffic. (to which you retort they shouldn't have to keep pace because drivers speed wily nily. Do you also like driving 35 on the beltway because it's your god given right?)

Two observations: first, a cyclist would be "keeping pace with traffic". That's because as you pointed out, bicycles are vehicles. Therefore, they're traffic. We all know how easy it is to be blinded by a sense of entitlement, but the posted speed limit is an upper--not lower--limit.
We're not talking about the Beltway, we're talking about multi-lane surface roads.

In any case, I disagree with you on the subject of whether cyclists should "pick" whether they're vehicles or not. They're vehicles. It's only reckless driving and bullying behavior by folks in cars--and a generally antagonistic posture by local government--that leads cyclists to skulk around the edges of the roadways rather than just taking their place in traffic.

When I'm riding a bike, I always behave as a vehicle. I take the right-most lane, unless I need to take a left-turn, in which case I merge left and ride in the left-most lane. I can tell you from experience that most drivers manage to behave in a courteous manner, but there is a non-trivial percentage of drivers who don't seem to like it when bikes are consistent and behave like vehicles. It's almost as though they want to have it both ways. Go figure.

by oboe on Sep 6, 2011 4:08 pm • link • report