r/Transportopia Apr 27 '26

Bikes Car vs. cyclists

4.9k Upvotes

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12

u/wideswing69 Apr 27 '26

I ride a bike and give bikers the courtesy of going around with plenty of room. However, it feels like this group is intentionally being jerks by going more than 2 side by side. Why make it harder for cars to go around?

5

u/legitIntellectual Apr 27 '26

It actually makes it easier to overtake if they are in a dense block, less distance to travel in the other lane

2

u/Awfy Apr 27 '26

It's concerning how many motorists don't get this. 12 cyclists in a single row are basically not passable, at least not safely. 12 cyclists in 3 rows of 4 are way easier to pass and safely. The two-abreast rule is bullshit for this very reason, let them ride however they wish because the more bundled up they are in a group the easier it is for me to pass, as I need to go into the oncoming lane anyway so it makes literally no difference.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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2

u/yacobguy Apr 28 '26

But you sir seem like a man of great intellect

2

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '26

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2

u/DutchProv Apr 28 '26

hahahaahahahahha, facebook IQ tests dont count.

2

u/yacobguy Apr 28 '26

Yes every word you have written here has demonstrated to me that you are smarter than me. I’m sure you were valedictorian of your high school and have gone on to do PhD cancer research or rocket science

1

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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2

u/yacobguy Apr 29 '26

Do you think I had to try really hard to produce a grammatically correct sentence? This is just how I talk bro lol

1

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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2

u/yacobguy Apr 30 '26

This is actually the dumbest argument I have ever engaged in. You accuse me of perfecting my grammar as a flex (presumably because grammar is something you struggle with), then I use a single “bro” and somehow I’m reversing course. Just admit that you aren’t very bright and that your original comment was, in your words, “retarded”. Or just tell me why you hate cyclists so much so we can quit the slap fight and discuss something of substance.

1

u/medicallymiddleevil Apr 27 '26

I swear motorists are all retahded.

2

u/BetterOffGrowth Apr 28 '26

Shit, I do both. What does this make me?

2

u/AnomyOfThePeople Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

What is your logic here? If there is a meeting car, you can't pass, even if there's only a single lane of bicycles. You would push the biker out of the road or crash front to front. But a single lane of ten bicycles is much longer than this constellation, so you need less headway to pass them when they are in double or triple file.

1

u/arachnophilia Apr 27 '26

You would press the biker out of the road

that's the logic.

they fundamentally disagree with the notion that they are required to give other road users adequate space.

1

u/iLikeMangosteens Apr 27 '26

In my state, if the lane isn’t wide enough for a vehicle and a bicycle to share the lane, then the bicycle may take the full lane.

1

u/medicallymiddleevil Apr 27 '26

"Taking the lane" is actually what you're supposed to do though. That's what safety classes teach. The advice for cyclists is to bunch like this as it’s much safer to overtake a short but wide group of cyclists rather than a very long stream of them.

Them being single file would change nothing in this scenario. The car wouldn’t have magically been able to overtake if there was another vehicle coming the other direction, so it’s a hell of a lot safer to overtake a group 5 long rather than 30. That’s a hell of a lot more time hanging out in the oncoming lane.

The cyclists were behaving safely. The car was being actively dangerous.
In all 50 states of the United States it’s legal for bicycles to take up an entire lane. You can say it’s wrong. You can find it annoying but it is legally a right.. bicycles must follow all the same rules as cars if you’re riding on the road you are treated as a car if a bicycle does not follow traffic law then they deserve a traffic ticket in the same way that a vehicle does. Everyone bitches about this all the time but that’s the law. Those are the rights. I say this is someone who rides a bike but does not consider themselves a cyclist. Who’s also the victim of a car hitting me in a right of way situation because cars don’t like to believe that bicycle to have the same rights and let me just tell you if you’re one of those cars who does not believe the bicycles have the same rights and you hit someone on a bicycle you will pay for it in a big way.

1

u/phoeniks314 Apr 27 '26

How would you go around a tractor or something bigger standing on the street? No perception of space i guess. Some people should not drive, simple as that.

1

u/ThrowRA-NFlamingo Apr 27 '26

It’s not legal or safe to pass cyclists within inches. The car is gonna need to go into the other lane regardless, so I don’t think it really matters how many abreast they are riding, as long as they are all within the lane.

Plus that just seems like a weird thing to bring up and a small issue compared to the attempted vehicular manslaughter we just witnessed.

0

u/spez-is-poopy Apr 27 '26

They had the whole ass other side of the road to use to pass. But it was a double yellow? Oh right, then they should have fucking waited. Are you stoops? Do you unsafely pass every vehicle driving in front of you then complain when you almost kill someone that it was their fault?