On 12/24/2019 1:04 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, December 23, 2019 at 9:30:45 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Monday, December 23, 2019 at 11:10:55 PM UTC-5, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, 23 December 2019 22:07:35 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/23/2019 6:19 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, 23 December 2019 16:16:12 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/22/2019 8:16 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


I can see moving more into the lanr but deliberately slowing down just to **** the guy off is just asking for an escalation.

Well, it worked out. Perhaps because oncoming traffic would have
provided witnesses.

FWIW, I do something similar when a driver is tailgating my car. First I
flash the brake lights three times. Most idiots then realize they're too
close and they back off.

But if an idiot stays close (or as some do, gets even closer) I slow
down. I'm determined not to reward obnoxious or dangerous behavior.


--
- Frank Krygowski

"Well, it worked out" is exactly what a lot of people say after they've done something dangerous or aggravating. Riding a bicycle in the middle of a traffic lane and then DELIBERATELY slowing down to impede traffic is a very silly thing to do. There are many areas of the country where such behaviour would have rather serious consequences for the bicyclist. Even without that, there is now one more ****ed off motorist to add their voice to those who would like to see bicyclists banned from the roads or herded into segregated bicycling chutes.

Sorry, Sir, I disagree. If every cyclist pulls over at every sign of
motorist aggression, then more and more motorists are going to learn
that it pays to be aggressive. More and more roads are going to be off
limits to bicyclists.

And I don't believe this guy ended up thinking "I'm going to try to get
bicyclists banned from the roads." I think it's far more likely he ended
up thinking "Man, I was being a real jerk." And in general, I think
that's the normal result of the very rare confrontations I have.

Let me give you two other incidents, both within the past five years.

1) I was on my way to a bike club ride, and I was ahead of schedule. At
one narrow underpass there's no way to avoid taking the lane, except
perhaps to get off the bike and walk a narrow dirt path by the side of
the road. (Perhaps that's what you would do?)

Anyway, a guy in a small pickup waited behind me until it was clear,
then passed in the oncoming lane, as he should have; but he blared his
horn all through the pass. Then, within 100 feet or so, he turned left
into a plaza parking lot.

I followed him and saw him just as he was walking into a pharmacy. I
said "Is there something wrong with your horn?" He said "You're supposed
to get out of the way!"

I said "Wrong. Ohio law gives me full rights to the road, and if the
lane is narrow I'm supposed to ride in the center."

He said "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

2) Same deal, different location, except the scrappy van passing me
didn't have to wait at all. He immediately turned left into a
residential street. I knew that neighborhood was essentially a
cul-de-sac. I followed him.

I found him about a block further on, pulled over on the left side of a
very quiet street, talking with a guy who was standing on his front
lawn. I rode up between them and said "4511.55" The driver looked
shocked and nervous, and his buddy looked confused. The driver said
"Pardon me?"

"4511.55. That's the Ohio law that gives bikes full rights to the road."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

And I rode on.

If the guy behind your bicycle was that impatient would it really have hurt you to pull over and let him by? Yes, because it would have what?

If I had kowtowed to those three jerks, three people would have gotten
the message that bullying works. Instead, by my count, there were four
people that got educated about our legal rights to the road, counting
the guy on the lawn.

I look at it this way. My bicycle weighs between 20 and 25 pounds. A car is around 3000 pounds and the driver is totally protected by it. If push comes to shove my bicycle will lose every time. I prefer not to take the risk and thus I try not to do things to deliberately **** off a driver of a motor vehicle.

And when you're driving your car do you pull off the road for trucks? If
you were on a motorcycle, would you pull off the road for a Honda Fit?

I don't base my driving or riding practices on relative weight. I base
them on the laws, and on what I've learned in about five different
cycling courses, plus tons of reading and countless miles of riding.

Your beliefs and practices once again differ from what I think most bicyclists would do.

Oh, I'm sure most bicyclists don't ride as I do. Most bicyclists haven't
bothered to consciously learn anything about riding. Many ride without
lights at night, ride mostly on sidewalks, routinely blow stop signs and
traffic lights, don't maintain their bikes, ride facing traffic, never
signal turns or lane changes, don't know how to execute a proper left
turn, can't ride a straight line, etc.

I'm not going to emulate "most riders," just as my driving doesn't
emulate "most drivers."


--
- Frank Krygowski

You on your bicycle deliberately holding back traffic as you did in your first comment are no different than those car drivers who do silly things and then spend time justifying their actions.

You mean by driving under the speed limit? "Horrors! How dare they! Everyone
knows it's a lower limit, not an upper limit."

No, Sir, that's wrong. It's not a lower limit. A bicyclist is allowed to ride at
a normal speed for a bicycle. That's a very close paraphrase of an Ohio appelate
court decision. There is no requirement for me to ride as fast as I can. There
is also no requirement for me to leave the roadway if someone else wants to
drive faster than I'm riding.

Yes, but that is in the republic of Ohio, basically the only place where that rule applies, assuming it still does. Virtually every other state has an impeding law or slow moving vehicle law -- even for cars. Washington even has a numerical rule (five vehicles): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=46.61.427 What's good for cars is good for bikes, no? Can't have a parade without a parade permit. There is a time to "control" traffic and a time not to control traffic and get out of the way. The same is true if you are in a car, on a horse, in a golf cart, etc., etc.

OK, perhaps we have to specify what situation we're discussing. Then you
can explain what sort of bicyclist behavior you're advocating.

First, Ohio has no "five or more" law, and it wouldn't matter anyway.
None of the incidents I described involved more than one motorist. And
in fact, it's vanishingly rare for me to delay a chain of five cars.
It's far more common for a line of cars to delay _me_.

Next: IIRC, more than half the states have minimum passing clearance
laws. Most, like Ohio, say three feet clearance is required. Typical
minimum width of a car is 6.5 feet or so, but trucks can be as wide as
8.5 feet. That means in most states a 12 foot lane is the bare minimum
that can be safely and legally shared. In my three examples, none of the
lanes were that wide.

So what are you saying that I should have done in those three
situations? What do _you_ do when you're riding a ten foot lane and an
8.5 foot truck comes up behind? Do you really jump off your bike and bow
as the motorist passes? Do you really tell your riding buddies to do that?

And while we're at it, perhaps you should say what should be the
behavior of a farmer driving his tractor from field to field; an Amish
guy in his horse drawn buggy; a post office employee driving a delivery
truck; a heavily loaded truck climbing a steep grade, etc. Are all those
people required to leave the road to avoid slowing an impatient jerk?


--
- Frank Krygowski