Question: Bike lanes at intersections.

Submitted by amf673 on Mon, 2009-11-16 11:38

I was riding west on 26th Ave SW this morning. I wanted to turn left (north) onto 29th St,
so I changed to the left lane and stopped at the light. When the light went green,
one car going east went through the intersection and the next pulled up to turn left.
I got ready to go, but I saw a car approaching, without a signal. There is an eastbound bike
lane so I thought they will either turn right, or wait behind the other car. But something told me he was going straight, so I waited and sure enough, he passed the car waiting to turn, on the right. If I had gone I could have been creamed. I went through after that.

Question: I know that cars are allowed to move into the bike lane near intersections (dashed lines) if they are turning right, but what if they are going straight through? It seems to me that should not be allowed, but I am not sure.

Forums:

Anything goes

East versus West.

Submitted by BCDon on Mon, 2009-11-16 14:04

Al, I'm assuming you have your Easts and Wests backwards. If I turned left to go North I must have been heading East to start with. In any case I went to that intersection via google street view just to check it out and it's a corner I've driven through many times. Of course all of this doesn't help your question.

Vehicle drivers are an unpredictable lot and most are very impatient. Which of course is exactly what they say about us bicycle riders. In any case, I'd assume that the driver would swerve (quickly or slowly) around the left turning vehicle so they wouldn't be held up. And, signal lights, on or off, mean nothing other than when on they prove that they work.

Unfortunately (or maybe it is fortunate), whether it is lawful for a vehicle to proceed or not isn't the question. The REAL question is whether you manage to anticipate enough to be safe which you did - good job.

passing on right is illegal

Submitted by ride on Mon, 2009-11-16 15:53

Al, passing on the right like that is illegal. The bike lanes on 26th Ave, to my recollection, don't have dashed lines anyway. But as BCDon says, it's better to be right than to be dead right. Good work on exercising your spidey sense.

Yes its illegal

Submitted by Spinner on Mon, 2009-11-16 18:10

to pass on the right if there is only one lane in that direction. With or without the bike lane. Good eye on spotting the idiot.

I feel pretty exposed when

Submitted by swade on Mon, 2009-11-16 20:21

I feel pretty exposed when turning left and have cars coming up from behind me and passing on my right all while waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic that I must yeild too.

I try to avoid those intersections and if the timing isn't right, I often keep riding and do a u-turn and come back to make a right turn.

Sometimes time to be a Pedestrian.

Submitted by BCDon on Mon, 2009-11-16 20:25

For some of those corners I pull over to the right, stop, get off the bike and walk across the road. For some intersections it is safer than attempting to make a left turn, especially if your are stopped for any length of time. On the other hand, when there isn't much traffic the left turn works well.

left turns

Submitted by vonbergm on Mon, 2009-11-16 22:50

If you don't feel comfortable being in the middle of the road and having cars pass all around you, or if you simply don't want to deal with the headache of changing across several lanes to get to the left-turn lane, you can always make a "scooter turn". Ride into the intersection in the right-most lane, but don't go all the way through. Instead position your bike in front of the car waiting at the red light to go through the intersection right to left. Make sure you take the whole lane, i.e. block the car, and that you are in the right-most "straight through" lane. If there are pedestrians crossing at the same time, you might have to adjust a little to make sure you don't block them.