Assuming he has the opportunity to change lanes and pass you, he’d have to be *really* patient to tailgate your bike for very long.

Most people have enough sense to realize that cyclists aren’t going to go much faster even if they’re tailgated.

A few stubborn jerks think it’s your job to jump off the road whenever there’s a car present, and they think it’s their job to enforce this fantasy. But most drivers quickly figure how to use the empty lane to the left.

I live in Houston. I commute about 14 miles to work often. From Bissonnet to Clay. I have never even considered taking the road until I read this post. I will definitely put this into practice now. Hugging the curb is just too dangerous. And yes, the bike paths/routes here are just too sparce and ill planned.

My question is this regarding taking the lane. I drive the speed limit in Houston wherever I go, and 1 of 3 cars tailgates. I’ve got this or that car on my ass constantly. Won’t the same be true if I’m on a bike?

Road rage is a real concern for me. I’m not talking about someone simply flipping me the bird, which I can handle. I’m talking about someone trying to make a point by physically harming me with a 2000 LB vehicle. I had a guy ram me on the freeway a couple years ago. I was going 55, so he must of been going at least 100 when he hit me. Folks are hugely impatient with other cars in this town. I can’t imagine it being any different for a guy on a bike.

a “gods gift to the road” Tahoe came about 6 inches from me as I was riding in the right side tire track, he was traveling about 40 mph in a 35. I did get a chance to stop and inform him of the law, he just blew it off saying that me traveling in the right tire track, say to him “move around me” Not “move into the other lane to pass me”.
afterward I realized that I am treated differently when riding my XXIX(28.5 lb) vs my Jake(24 lbs). Though it is heavy to do any serious commuting on, so Friday I picked up an SE Stout, with my mods (cockpit & fork), SS it will be down to 24 lbs.
I figure I should be ok with that

a “gods gift to the road” Tahoe came about 6 inches from me as I was riding in the right side tire track, he was traveling about 40 mph in a 35. I did get a chance to stop and inform him of the law, he just blew it off saying that me traveling in the right tire track, say to him “move around me” Not “move into the other lane to pass me”.
afterward I realized that I am treated differently when riding my XXIX(28.5 lb) vs my Jake(24 lbs). Though it is heavy to do any serious commuting on, so Friday I picked up an SE Stout, with my mods (cockpit & fork), SS it will be down to 24 lbs.

As long as you’re very slow and very careful, you can probably get around on sidewalks without much additional danger. That might be okay for short distances. Here’s some info about some of the trouble spots:

http://cyclistview.com/inclusivepdintro/index.htm

Another option would be to seek out lower-volume roads, assuming they connect to where you’re going.

True: the absolute best way to cultivate a bike culture is to get people out on bikes.
The huge however, though, is that if bicycle lanes *only* create the perception of safety, and in fact the safety isn’t there, then much more harm will be done as those riders will graduate from “I would ride if there were bike lanes so I could be safe,” to “OMG! Those cars! I tried the bike lane and almost got killed by a guy making a right hand turn this morning! YOu must be SOO BRAVE to ride your bike! Even bike lanes aren’t safe!”

(welp, I take a different route than that *because* of the intersection you’re talking about…) We’ve been advocating here for “Complete Streets” - the idea that any time you design any street it should consider all its users… and that there are different ways to meet those needs, depending on the setting.

There are commuters like me who don’t fit neatly into your categorization. I frequently have to convince people that no, I don’t have a wild-west attitude… that I’m pretty much a weenie. I’m thinking that’s one of our big problems - it *almost* sounds like even you believe that if somebody is riding confidently in the street, they’ve got a wild-west attitude… that any *reasonable* rider should want to be in a bike lane.

And then there’s the fact that our non-expert riders can be **extremely** non-expert. Bike lanes don’t get the wild-westers or the simply uneducated riding *with* traffic, with lights, riding safely…

Have you’ve conflated “bike lanes” and “bike infrastructure?” Look at those bike lanes that don’t connect, bike lanes that are inherently flawed … and, basically, a culture that considers cyclists a political special interest group that’s a nuisance to be given as little as possible… bike lanes don’t cure that; they don’t develop infrastructure *or* set policies (such as having housing developments designed for more than cars).

I think if you get out there and help push for bike lanes you’ll do lots of good… but I suspect you can do more if you are sure to listen carefully to what happens around those bike lanes (which, of course, you’re doing).

For inexperienced cyclists and for the purposes of growing the community of bike commuters bike lanes are very important because regardless of any real effects and how arguable those may be, they create the perception of safety and study after study has shown that that is what gets people on their bikes. A real infrastructure gives cyclists some standing on the road and that encourages people to be there.

The ‘I’ve commuted every day for ten years’ club doesn’t care about bike lanes because they’ve got both a wild west attitude that their safety is in their hands and theirs alone and because they know the tricks and prefer not to be regulated. They are correct about their own experience as far as that goes. Also, in bike-shitty cities road crap does tend to get swept into the bike lanes, no doubt.

However, any real bike friendly city — like the european cities — creates a bike infrastructure that’s targeted at people who are not experts and sets policy on their behalf. That’s the only reasonable step, because one important reason you have a bike lane, a bike box, bike boulevards, sharrows and the like is to increase overall visibility of the activity even if that’s irrespective of any particular and real effect it has at any specific time or place.

If the road is wide enough for a bike lane, it’s probably already as safe as it’s going to get for cyclists. Both my experiences and the research i’ve been able to find point to a wide lane as giving all of the benefits of a narrow lane + bikelane (of a similar total width), and without some of the downsides of bikelanes. Specifically:

– Bikelanes tend to be disproportionately full of gravel, glass, and other stuff you don’t want to bike in, because the motorists avoid the bike lane whether or not there are bicycles in it, so the crud on the road only gets blown as far as the bike lane, instead of being blown into the gutter or completely off the road.

– Even with a bikelane, you’ll probably have to move out of the bikelane and claim a different lane in most of the same circumstaces you would’ve had to before the bikelane–when people are buzzing you too closely, when approaching intersections, to avoid debris, etc. And the motorists then get even more upset than when you adopt the exact same lane position on a road that doesn’t have that extra stripe on it.

– Bikelanes seem to encourage in motorists the mistaken notion that they don’t have to be–or shouldn’t be–in the curb lane for right turns, increasing the incidence of right-hook style turns across cyclists. And encourage the mistaken notion in cyclists that they can or should make left turns from the curb lane.