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Old November 22nd 16, 01:12 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
NFN Smith[_2_]
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Posts: 33
Default AG: I did it again.

Joy Beeson wrote:
I was riding west on Arthur Street, approaching the intersection with
Park. When I got close to the intersection, I moved right because I
intended to turn right when I got there. It did not enter my muddled
head that the car behind me might also intend to turn right.

Having been invited to do so, he overtook me and swerved to the right.
By great good fortune he had one of those blinky things on his front
fender, and I was still several feet from the intersection, so
ordinary braking avoided the collision.


This is one of those things that's often specific to a particular
intersection.

Where I am, we have a lot of wide boulevards that include both bike
lanes and dedicated right turn lanes. Often, in the space before the
right turn, the solid line that identifies the bicycle lane becomes a
dashed line, indicating to the motorist that in order to get into the
right turn lane, it's necessary to cross over the bicycle lane.
Accompanying signage notes that if there's a bike in that space, the
bike has the right of way.

That said, years ago, in a narrower intersection (having a bike lane,
but no right turn), I was moving up to a light next to a large motor
home, and he suddenly turned in front of me -- I don't remember if he
was trying to make a right turn on red. More likely the light turned
green (and I didn't see the change). I was pretty surprised when the
mass of vehicle beside me suddenly became a mass of vehicle that was
perpendicular to my path. Lesson learned: go with caution when
overtaking a vehicle on the right, at a signal light...

A place where I rode years ago a place where there was a freeway and a
frontage road, and a major boulevard that crossed both of those. The
alignment of the intersection was such that for a motorist that was
coming up the frontage road and then getting onto the freeways was to
make a left turn onto the boulevard, and then move over to the right as
quickly as possible to prepare for a right turn onto the freeway
on-ramp. For that, a dedicated right turn lane, but no bike lane.

I found that when I was crossing the freeway on the boulevard, it was
best to stay to the center (or even a little left of center) on the
boulevard, until after I had passed the lane for the on-ramp, as a way
of forcing a motorist to cross into the right turn lane behind me,
rather than trying too hard to get around me, and cutting me off.

Smith



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