With regards to the 12 inches of space, the UK has recently passed a law requiring a 5ft gap when passing a cyclist. As a motorist it really does make me think about how I'm going to pass safely and whether it is even possible to do.
What I'd really like to see is cyclists giving themselves that much space. If I had a penny for every time someone's squeezed through between my wing mirror and the kerb in start/stop traffic with just an inch or two to spare...
As with many other things, the way forward here is to copy the Scandinavian countries and separate cyclists from motorists entirely. Sadly, though, there are too many groups fighting this kind of change.
> What I'd really like to see is cyclists giving themselves that much space.
If I had a penny for every time someone's squeezed through between my wing mirror and the kerb in start/stop traffic with just an inch or two to spare...
This really gets pulled out every single time someone points out the proper distance required for passing a cyclist and it’s wrong.
First, passing a cyclist with a car and passing a car with a cycle are asymmetric things. The cyclist needs space to actually go a straight line, the path of a bicycle is never straight - and it sways more at slower speeds.
The cyclist also needs space in both directions to make a turn, for example to avoid an obstacle. If you take that space to one side, they cannot even safely turn the other direction.
Cars have a significantly higher draft than cyclists. They’re bigger, heavier and scarier. If the cyclist twitches as you pass them, you were too close.
Cars just don’t fall over. Cyclists do. Slippery patch on the road, whatever. And when they fall, they need space.
The car driver passing the cyclist has no idea how skilled the cyclist is. And unskilled cyclists need more space to maneuver - or make mistakes when scared and fall. See above. The cyclist passing the car knows their skill. And even unskilled cars do not randomly fall over.
The danger is asymmetric. A car even slightly touching a cyclist is likely to end up with a major injury or death. A cyclist slightly touching a car is a dent and a scratch.
This is why in many places, there’s a mandatory minimum distance when for a car passing a cyclist, but none for cyclist passing a car.
I'm absolutely not denying the cyclist needs space and motorists have to give them space. I completely agree with this. I completely agree that the danger is asymmetric.
I'm saying the cyclist still needs that space even when they are moving faster than the cars around them, because they are still in danger even when they are the fastest moving thing in the vicinity.
Cars have blind spots, and cyclists that overtake with insufficient clearance fit precisely into them. Cyclists can still wobble, fall or slip even when they are the ones doing the overtaking, and they still get hurt. Danger is present even when the motorised vehicle is only moving at low speed, because parts of the cyclist and/or bike can still get snagged on parts of the motor vehicle if the cyclist wobbles or falls into it.
I firmly believe insufficient clearance between cyclists and cars is a situation that we can and should avoid with sensible design of cycle paths, roads and junctions. In the sad absence of such, enough clearance has to be maintained to avoid collision if either party stops suddenly or the cyclist wobbles or falls.
In slow or start/stop traffic, the car is generally trapped between other cars and has nowhere to move to; the cyclist is the only party with any control over the situation.
I don't think the argument was that the cyclist passing close would endanger the car, it's that cyclist seem to sometimes have a disturbing disregard for their OWN safety when it comes to the choices THEY make.
Squeezing by cars in start/stop traffic is one of the more debatable ones. There's also rampant red light running. Driving without lights at night, wearing dark clothes, is the one where I see absolutely no upside for their behavior.
> Squeezing by cars in start/stop traffic is one of the more debatable ones.
Where I live, this is called "filtering", and it's encouraged by both cycling organisations and motoring organisations. If the ICE traffic has stopped, then the worst that can happen is that you misadjust some motorist's wing mirror, and they have to wind their window down to fix it.
> Driving without lights at night, wearing dark clothes, is the one where I see absolutely no upside for their behavior.
Agreed! If you dress up as a piece of tarmac and proceed down a tarmac road made for cars, without lights, you should expect cars to treat you like a piece of road, because that's what you look like.
> and it's encouraged by both cycling organisations and motoring organisations.
This shouldn't really come as a surprise. It's much safer for the cyclist to get ahead of traffic.
It's a very nervy situation to have traffic slowly start moving again and you being on your bike squeezes near this accelerating train of cars.
Even worse is to be between 2 cars. If the one in front of you suddenly breaks and you can't break on time, you hit them. If you do break on time, you run the risk of getting rammed by the car behind you and squashed into the car in front of you.
As a cyclist and a driver, I've never had a cyclist throw something at my car just for existing. My brother has been shot at with a pellet gun. I've had cars swerve at me to run me off the road.
There are a lot of psychos out there with a straight up violent hatred for cyclists and a way too many people justifying it because a cyclist was a danger to themselves at some point.
Last week, while driving my car, I had a car behind me flash his headlights and honking at me because I decided not to pass a cyclist in front of me in an area I assessed as too narrow to pass safely. So sometimes even automobilists experience psycho attitudes towards cyclists by proxy.
I agree, some Cyclist do seem to have little regard for their own safety - but it’s their own safety. A car making a close pass endangers someone else’s safety.
> The car driver passing the cyclist has no idea how skilled the cyclist is.
If the cyclist changes bikes, then even the cyclist doesn't know. And cyclists change bikes quite a lot, because cycle thieves. You have to get used to a new bike; each machine has different steering geometry and balance.
> If the cyclist twitches as you pass them, you were too close.
If I feel the breeze as you pass me, you were too close. Actually I think that's quite a good metric, because it ties together your speed and closeness.
If I put my hand on a table, and someone slams a hammer next to it, I would be justified in being upset about the near-miss as it had a big chance of hurting me.
If the hammer is on the table, and I put my hand next to it, there is really no reason for anyone to be angry. I didn't hurt the hammer. And I'm not a hypocrite, as in this case the chance of hurting myself was zero.
You do not have the same visibility of the lateral extent of your car as a cyclist has of the lateral extent of their bicycle. I've maneuvered at somewhat high speed through gaps that were only like 5 cm wider than me on each side. You can't do that on a car; you just don't have that kind of line of sight.
I am very very aware that I lack the visibility a cyclist has. This is precisely what makes having cyclists in my blind spot utterly terrifying. It is even worse when I am driving something larger than a car, and when the traffic is slow-moving rather than entirely stationary.
Well, one thing at a time. What you were originally talking about was about cyclists making close passes. A cyclist doesn't need to hang around in your blind spot to pass you closely.
I assume you also wonder why there is an area marked on the train platform you should not stand in, yet people enter it all the time when a train is stopped.
On the other hand, I can guarantee you that many, if not most, urban cyclists have had cars attempt to ram their bikes in both slow- and fast-moving traffic.
