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This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.Subscribe
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This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.
Bike lanes should be 5 feet wide (absolute minimum is 4 feet). 3-foot bike lanes certainly can increase car swerving and can give a false sense of safety to cyclists. If bike lanes are adjacent to on-street parking, 5 feet is barely wide enough (stay out of that door-zone!).
I’m confused. If the bikes are given their own lane, why are the cars swerving? And, really, why would cars swerve at the last second instead of simply moving over ahead of time to pass as they approach a cyclist? Drivers must be pretty big jerks where you’re at.
I have to agree. While it may actually be wide enough for your average car, the fear that you may slightly swipe the cyclist is still there. Its better to move farther away from the bicycle lane and avoid an accident than to risk side swiping the bicycle. It’s not being a jerk, it’s being safe.
A deer almost hit me last weekend, while I was riding in the bike lane after dark. I probably would’ve come out o.k. after a tangle with the baby, but momma and her sisters would’ve messed my bike and me up!
Not many bike lanes in suburban Pittsburgh, but LOTS of deer!!
Forget bike lanes–deer are 3 feet wide? Your average deer is neither 3 feet long nor 3 feet wide. Or 3 feet high. Makes no sense.
All nitpicking aside, I find this funny. So I guess that makes one of us.
And as for why bike lanes cause cars to swerve, well, that’s a two-way street. Drivers around here don’t ever give pause to cyclists, and 90% of the cyclists don’t follow the rules of the road whatsoever. Nothing else quite like seeing two cyclists coming at each other head-on in a too-narrow “bike lane” with a full line of cars just outside the line …
The cars are swerving because, like Chaz says, most cyclists on the road go wherever they please. As a cyclist (who makes every attempt to actually be where I’m supposed to be when on the road) I can tell you that bike lanes are certainly and frequently about 3 feet wide. And of course many cyclists decide that the most fun roads to ride are the twisty mountain and canyon ones with blind corners and narrow roads. Like there’s a mentality that because cars are expected to yield to bikes, bikes can do whatever they want.
I wish they would allow the school safety officers at my son’s school to carry a large foam-rubber shotgun that they could brandish while standing in the bike lane that runs in front of the school. (I’d settle for an actual cop who could give out real tickets.)
Nothing worse than when I’m trying to pull over to the right to the curb in the designated spot (and not where the buses stop) and have to swerve back because some idiot realized, “hey, no one driving in this lane! Short cut!”
That annoys me more than the drivers who think the flashing red lights on the bus are only a suggestion.
Do drivers try to avoid bikes where you live? Sweet.
3 feet wide cycle lanes? If only.
-or-
Your ass
Here in Denmark, most bike lanes have their own curbstone to separate them from the nearest car lane. That somewhat limits the cars swerving – if caught, the fine for driving on the bike lane is about $100. It gets even better in Holland, where they have a separate traffic system for bikes most places. Just imagine!
@Ashley: I’m afraid that goes for me, too.
Up until I looked at the punch line I thought it was going to be potholes.
@magpie – You’ve got some mighty small deer. The deer around here are 5-6 feet long and 4-5 feet tall. Some of them may even make it to 3 feet wide. When cars hit them the car is usually totaled and sometimes people are killed in the accident.
…oh deer…
I think this defines Colorado. Even though there are bike trails seperate from the roads EVERYWHERE.
Nice one.
I love filling in the missing bits!
3′ wide/makes cars swerve – drunk Santa Claus
3′ wide/on more and more roads – Potholes (hat tip to Jack) is pretty good. How ’bout Obese kids?
On more and more roads/makes cars swerve – Cell phones
The line that separates the bike lane from the road should be made much thicker, so that a cyclist riding on the very left edge of his lane and a driver driving on the very right edge of his lane would not even be close.