On this morning’s ride I encountered three polite and well-meaning motorists that attempted to drive carefully around/near me, but still possibly put me in danger. First, I had 2 different drivers slow way down before passing me, which was great. The speed limit was 45, I was doing 18 mph, and they slowed to 25-30 mph when they caught and passed. That was great. What was not so fantastic was that they didn’t move left over the yellow line at all, and so passed very close to me. By law, drivers need to give cyclists and other slow-moving vehicles 3 feet of clearance (in VA; some states require more). It is permissible to go into the other lane to make the pass, provided no one is coming the other way (and in both cases today, no one was coming the opposite direction). If you cannot give 3 feet due to oncoming traffic, you should wait to pass. Those double yellow lines do not mean you cannot go over them when passing slow-vehicles. In fact, when police cars pass me, they almost always go fully into the other lane. I have never heard of a cop giving a ticket for giving a cyclist or a tractor some space. When I’m driving, I do like the cops and go fully into the other lane when it’s clear when passing cyclists.
Motorist passing a cyclist with plenty of space.
Then, another moment in my ride: I came up to a stop sign and stopped. Cross traffic did not have a stop sign. Yet, the driver coming from my right stopped, and then waved me across. That is nice, but one little problem: the car coming from my left also did not have a stop sign, and gave no indication of stopping (and he shouldn’t). Ended up being a little confusing as the car coming from the left then went to make a left, and took the other driver’s waving at me as waving him across, so went. The first driver was still waving me across, so I went. There was a crosswalk, but I was not at the crosswalk since I was on my bike. The correct thing for the first driver to do was to just continue to drive as if I was another car at the stop sign; he had right of way. As it was, he ended up holding up traffic behind him and causing confusion in the intersection. Had I just gone ahead when he first waved me across, I could have potentially been hit by the driver coming from my left, and it would have been my own fault since he had the right-of-way. So, please, I know you may want to be polite, but please drive in a normal fashion, and don’t stop at an intersection if you don’t have a stop sign. I can wait until it’s clear for me to cross, and there will be less confusion.
Although it didn’t happen on today’s ride, I have also had the occasional respectful motorist cause scary situations in another fashion while passing me: they go completely in the other lane, giving me lots of space, which is awesome. But less awesome is that they choose to do so on a blind hill or around a blind curve. Um…what if someone comes the other way? They’ll either end up in a head-on collision, or they’ll end up swerving back into the lane into me! For this reason, I am on a blind hill or curve, I will usually ride more out in the lane to try to discourage drivers from passing. Then I will go back toward the right side of the lane once visibility is good over the hill or around the curve.
These couple incidents on today’s ride made me think of a few other things that occur with car/bike interactions in our area. Lately, 
Winchester has been trying to make the city safer for bike commuting, which has been great. BikeWalk Winchester and WinFred MPO have added additional signage and markings on the road ways, and are working on installing more bike racks around town. We have had signs like Share the Road up for quite a while, but those signs are problematic. The intent of the sign is to alert drivers to the fact they may encounter cyclists while driving and to drive accordingly. But most motorists think the sign only refers to cyclists, and they think that how cyclists should share the road is to just get off of it! So, those signs have proven in many places to not actually be helpful. But now the city has put up some new signs around town: Bikes May Use Full Lane.
These are better signs because they make cyclist’s right to be on the road clear and unambiguous. Bikes are vehicles, and riders have the same rights as car drivers on the road. Yes, staying toward the right is a good idea, but riding in the gutter is not. So in the lane where you are visible and not riding through broken glass, rocks, etc., is the best place to ride. The city has also put down Sharrows in some areas, that emphasize they are common roads for cyclists in town to use. And they are placed right in the lane, clearly signifying bikes have a right to the road.
These are good things, and the more people we can get riding on the roads, the more drivers will get used to seeing us and get used to driving with us, and therefore the safer riding on the roads will be. And hopefully, efforts, even small like this one, will lead to drivers being better educated and safer driving alongside cyclists.
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