As a cyclist, two people cycling side by side while other vehicles are waiting to pass is a bit of a dick move tbh.
Not illegal, and nothing compared to the shit that drivers do to cyclists, but still a bit of a dick move.
Cycling two abreast is better for the driver, since they can overtake much quicker.
That image is quite a niche scenario and doesn’t represent the situation in the original image.
Obviously it’s different with a group of eight compared to just two people…
niche scenario
Never been to a country where road cycling is massive then? Try living in anyplace that has Alps in it lol
You’re right. I live in a city and have never seen more than four people cycling together.
It’s almost like cycling in the alps is a niche situation, and cycling in cities happens much more frequently 🤔
That all depends on the type of cycling, and what you call a city
How is it different though? In the original picture you can safely overtake the two of them in about half the time and half the available opening in traffic compared to them riding single file.
Because the image assumes that a driver can only ever safely overtake if they’re completely in the other lane, which simply isn’t true.
It also assumes that there will be an opportunity where the other lane is completely free for them to move into it.
Overtaking eight people in a line is going to have a large time saving if they’re cycling in twos, but when you scale that down to just two then the difference is negligible and the space saving is more important.
I don’t think you understand the point of the image
Your theory rests on the assumption that I value my life and safety lower than two seconds the driver could shave off of their journey time. Or thirty seconds. Or two days.
Well, buddy, you’re wrong.
Even if I’m riding alone I’m not riding in the gutter where I have a greater risk of puncture from debris, and a greater risk of some idiot close passing in a 3 ton umbrella.
Have a closer read of points 2 and 3 in the image. For most lanes there isn’t enough width for cyclist + wobbling side to side + 1.5m margin + car. So the car needs to overtake in the other lane, which means the other lane needs to be completely free of cars.
It’s superficially convincing but if it was true you wouldn’t need an infographic. Drivers would notice for themselves that it’s better for them. In practice it’s easy to overtake cyclists in a line and impossible to overtake them side-by-side. I’ve never overtaken side-by-side cyclists in my life, when that happens you’re stuck behind them until they make a turn.
What actually happens is, like the footnote says, cyclists doing this take up the whole lane, they don’t tuck in like image 4, so point 3 and 4 are both false.
3 is wrong because having enough time to pull to the center doesn’t mean you have enough time to pull fully into the other lane and back. A safe overtake is made impossible because the required time is longer.
4 is wrong because with cyclists across the lane you get just as close to them when fully in the other lane as in image 1, and it’s just as dangerous as in-lane overtaking.
5 is just dumb. Both groups take the same time to overtake because of the extra time taken to pull over, and you have way more opportunities to straddle overtake, not to mention the side-by-side groups blocking visibility reducing opportunities even further.
I commute by bike every day and don’t own a car, I will fully block lanes when I don’t want to be overtaken, but I still think this is annoying selfish behavior.
but if it was true you wouldn’t need an infographic.
That’s a shit argument.
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it doesn’t actually ever say why they should. It completely ignores that it obviously takes longer to drive across into the other lane and then back than to pass the cyclists
Because it’s SAFER. Oh my god, have we really got so selfish that a human life is worth like a second.
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As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, in the UK (which is where this image seems to be from), the “safe” passing distance for a car overtaking a bike is supposed to be 1.5m. Add that to the 0.5m minimum distance the cyclist is supposed to be from the kerb and the width of the cyclist themselves, and overtaking even a single cyclist should have the car almost entirely in the other lane anyway (UK lanes are typically narrower than their US counterparts).
Whether anyone actually follows those rules is another question, but that is how motorists are supposed to behave.
It is also written into our Highway Code that motorists should “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders and horse drawn vehicles at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car”
Yes illegal, depending on the country.
I disagree since overtaking a cyclist in the same lane is unsafe anyway. In the city I always cycle in the middle of the lane because it prevents unsafe takeovers and dooring.
Where do you see another vehicle “waiting to pass”? There’s absolutely nothing in this picture telling you how much traffic there is, how wide the road is, etc. Nothing.
What can be seen in the picture, however, is a car that, no matter the speed, is tailgating way too close. Which is a misdemeanor in some countries.
Wrong, it’s easier and safer to overtake two cyclists abreast because you don’t have to be in the oncoming lane for as long
If cyclists can use the whole lane (common situation in the United States for example), it is (almost always) illegal for a driver to leave their drivable portion of the road to pass someone, bicyclist or otherwise. That includes crossing any lines, going to the opposite side of the road, being on the shoulder or sidewalk, etc.
Without a separate bicycle lane, it is not permitted to pass a bicyclist.
I’m not sure I’m understanding… as a driver you can legally pass by going into the opposing lane momentarily, as long as the line in the center is dashed (not solid) on your side and there is no oncoming traffic. That’s kind of the whole reason the center line is painted like that, combined with those signs that say “do not pass” and “pass with caution” when the line goes solid and back to dashed.
In that scenario, that would be part of the drivable area yes. However, that is exceedingly rare in the United States at least from my experience in smaller cities/suburbia (east coast). I regularly see people breaking the law by driving on the shoulder to go around someone turning left, and illegally crossing a solid double yellow line to pass a bicyclist.
In my experience in midwest suburbia the center line is almost always dashed unless there’s poor visibility (seeing around a tight curve or over a hill) or more than one lane of traffic in each direction (eliminating the need to overtake in opposing traffic). Or its a pedestrian zone, with reduced speed regardless.
True, some people break the laws. I don’t see it nearly as often as you claim to, and usually not in especially unsafe conditions, but the point stands that those people are selfish and impatient. I don’t see why bicyclists should have to sacrifice either their freedom (to bike to where they please and utilize existing public infrastructure) or their safety (by leaving the illusion that a full size vehicle might squeeze by at cruising speed) for such people. It’s not bicyclists’ fault that the infrastructure fails to serve all of its users equally.
Which is why everyone hates cyclists. Y’all are the left lane campers of the freeway.
Don’t hate the cyclists, hate the government. We all want separate cycle lanes.
In my city people are literally protesting new separated bicycle lanes by slashing the tires of rental bikes… Ridiculous
Some of those same people will then unironically complain about being “stuck behind a cyclist”.
If a sign is posted saying ‘Bicyclists may use full lane’ then that lane is now a bicycle lane with cars being allowed on it for some reason. Check your car brain.
Bro you’re just getting in peoples way. Regardless of your opinion they’re not going to like you.
Regardless of your opinion, it is illegal
There’s a line between following the law and being a dick
And just so we’re clear, the reason it’s a dick move is the car can move faster than the bike so blocking the car robs the people in the car if its full utility. They’re now forced to go your speed, which is probably less than the speed limit.
Why state a car’s length in millimeters? Why state any length over a meter in millimeters?
Why doesn’t the world use the decimeter? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used anywhere.
Using millimeters is pretty common in engineering.
So is using meters.
millimeters allow these numbers to be displayed as integers
Is that how numbers work, fascinating.
I’ve seen technical drawings where the dimension of something is 10000+ mm. At that point I feel like the whole utility of the metric system is moot.
I disagree with you. If you need five digits of precision, 12345 mm is precise and perfectly usable (and slightly less complex than 12,345 meters). Others might just say that the machine (or whatever) is twelve meters long. And all the math you need is removing three digits.
Builders, carpenters, plumbers etc all state any length up to 10m in mm
In countries that aren’t America, we use centimetres and metres. But it was suggested that yanks are a bit thick and might be happier using woodworkers units of millimetres and metres.
No one uses deci anything, in my experience.
I’ve seen deciliters around some places for beverages.
Interesting, only place I have seen them is in science fiction books, and the occasional scifi themed bar.
Because too many people don’t understand sig figs
My decimeters be decimating
Yeah, I only use furlongs, rods, chains, and links in my calculations.
Don’t forget hectares!
This guy gets it!
Its quite common around here to see height restrictions signed in mm. For example a car park entrance might have a sign labeled 1800mm max height
I’m curious to see how the arguments for using mm instead of dm varies from the argument for using imperial vs metric. You’re right that there’s way better units to use here, but I think mm is used out of convention. Which is the exact same reason that feet and miles are used, because everyone is used to it.
Update the picture to include the particulate pollution from the tires and you got a solid piece
So people saying the bikes side by side are a dick move are implying that you have more right to the road because you’re driving a car?
Generally speaking, to do an overtake, a car needs to leave the lane completely, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s one or two bikes.
You are assuming drivers respect the safety distance from a lone biker…
It does matter. It’s safer for everyone if cyclists travel side by side in one lane because then the car driver has to spend less time in the oncoming lane to complete the overtake. A long string of bikes takes more time to safely pass.
It’s especially safer for the cyclists who risk getting side swiped and crushed by drivers trying to avoid going into the adjacent lane, and since cyclists have no steel box surrounding them, it’s a one sided battle that the car initiated in the first place. Riding side by side forces the car to do a normal, legal overtake by moving into the next lane.
Most of the streets around here were built when the idea that every house could have a car would be viewed as a fantasy.
So you’ve got cars parked up and down each side of the road, and if two cars want to pass each other, then you have to hope that there’s space for one of you to pull over.
If you want to overtake even one bike, forget it. It’s probably got some balaclava wearing kid on it, weaving none-handed up the middle of the road.
Those kinds of streets are actually the safest for everyone because they enforce lower speeds and more attentive driving than any posted speed limit ever can. People don’t give two shits about speed laws and will drive as fast as they feel they can, so when the road is not conducive to driving fast, surprise surprise people don’t drive fast and collisions are rarely deadly.
More info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbqNUqdZlwM
Gurl, what’s with the spooky bike fanfic
Would it be less of a dick move if it was a faster cyclist or a motorcyclist needing to pass by? No, it might actually be worse.
The point is that we need to do our best to respect other road users, regardless of their method of transportation. Pedestrians, cyclist, motorcyclists, cars, lorries and even animals (perhaps especially animals)
Any side-by-side vehicles increases the amount of space taken on the road, which means it should be avoided when other travellers need to pass by. It’s the same reason that lorries or cars travelling side-by-side at the same speed on the highway is often frowned upon.
I really don’t get people who want to wage a constant social war over our shared infrastructure by being assholes to each other. Being decent and considerate is safer and more pleasant for everybody involved.
A car takes up at least the width of two bikes by default. Why do they have the right to do that while bikes don’t?
Maybe we should focus more on overall efficiency and sustainability of our transport systems, and by that metric, cars shouldn’t even exist. A four lane road takes up the same width as a two track rail corridor and mixed use pedesterian/bike paths on either side, but can transport far more people per hour than private cars while being both cheaper in the long run and more environmentally friendly.
The answer is simple really. The car is one unit, the bikes (in this scenario) are two units, they don’t have to be considerate, but they have the option to do so.
I’ll give an equivalent example. Where I live we have a class of vehicles referred to as “moped cars”, same form factor as cars, but speed restricted to either 30 or 45 km/h. Usually they’re used by teens to get arouns in rural areas with poor public transit options, so they’ll often be trundling along on 70-90km/h roads at slow speed.
This can quickly lead to queues building up behind them during high traffic hours in areas with few passing opportunities. Quite often, when this happens, they’ll pull off to the side for a few seconds at an opportune spot to let other, faster vehicles, pass by. They don’t have to do this, but it is considerate.
As for the second half of your comment, each method of transportation has its niche and purpose. The best system is one that utilizes the strengths of each to complement the others. Attempting to apply a monolithic solution everywhere will generally lead to frustrations and inefficiencies.
Pedestrian - Trivial distances, any density.
Bike - Trivial -> Short distances, any density.
Cars - Short -> Long distances, low density.
Busses - Short -> Long distances, medium density.
Rail - Short -> Long distances, high density.
High Speed Rail - Medium -> Extreme distances, high density.
Air - Long -> Extreme distances, high density.
Because they can move fast enough to not be in the way for people behind them, since they are among the fastest vehicles on our roads. Bikes are considerably slower, which makes it more of a nuisance for those they’re sharing the road with if they can’t easily be passed.
Bike lanes are a good thing, and being courteous is a good thing- that goes both for passing when safe and being respectful of bike riders when you’re driving a car, and also for allowing cars to pass where possible when you’re moving significantly slower than the average traffic speed on a bicycle. It doesn’t have to be adversarial.
Trains are even faster than cars despite being more efficient. Cars actually get in the way of trains, as level crossings are among the worst bottlenecks to both speed and frequency on a railroad, even if every single driver obeys the rules perfectly, the existence of an intersection between two fundamentally incompatible modes of transport introduces a conflict point which inevitably creates inefficiencies. In this way, cars are a “nuisance” to trains in the same way bikes are to cars, and being courteous won’t solve that. So by your own logic, we should get rid of cars and build rail instead.
Being courteous does solve that…? First off, trains don’t share the road, they follow tracks, so thats somewhat of a convoluted comparison. But more importantly, you stop at train crossings so the train can go first…? Is your argument that that’s inefficient? Everything is inefficient. Any solution to a really complicated problem like how multiple forms of transportation co-exist is going to have inefficiencies
Also, no idea where you got the idea that I would be opposed to building more rail and less cars? Cars should increasingly be de-prioritzed in favor of bikes, ebikes, and public transit, but bike riders should be courteous of those who are driving and vice versa, and cars should continue to stop at train tracks to allow trains to go by. Where on earth did you get the idea that my logic of “be considerate of those who are using a different means of transportation” means cars should go away or that cars shouldn’t go away? Also we definitely should be building rail, if we’re gonna deprioritze cars we need public transportation to help fill that gap for people who aren’t in a position to commute or travel by bike/ebike, but all of our infrastructure is currently built around cars, and even in a distant future there will be a need for cars in addition to bikes and trains, we just have way too many of them
I don’t mean to come across as rude, but your response to my comment honestly does really confuse me.
Be respectful of those you share the road with. That means driving in a way that’s safe for cyclists. That means letting cars go by (when safe to do so) when you’re cycling since they travel much faster than you. And definitely stop at train tracks so that trains can go by.
Tracked vehicles tend to have priority against all other methods of transport on land. They’re just as incompatible with pedestrians and bikes as with busses, lorries and cars.
It’s far easier, cheaper, faster, and more space efficient to build a pedestrian or bike over/underpass than one for cars. A pedestrian overbridge is usually a community project with city involvement, a car overbridge is at the very least a city/country project potentially with state or federal funding.
Are you really arguing that passing two bikes is the same maneuver as passing one? That second bike isn’t going to like it.
How so?
If my vehicle had the ability to change its width when I needed to, I’d agree with you, but my car does not have that option, the two bikes do, it wouldn’t take much effort for one to slide behind the other to let the vehicle behind pass, it’s a give and take with society, I’ll actively make sure to keep you safe from my vehicle, while bikes should actively try to allow larger or faster vehicles to pass safely instead of putting themselves at risk over something that takes no effort to do.
I’ll actively make sure to keep you safe from my vehicle
As someone who cycles on the road, I don’t trust you. Not in the slightest. Far too many close calls with cars trying to “sneak” by me because “oh I’m sure there’s plenty of room to the right” even in a bike-oriented city. I ride alone the vast majority of the time but having someone ride beside would actually make me feel safer because it means you actually have to perform a legal overtake which involves moving into the passing lane. Also, drivers are distracted all the time and I absolutely do not trust that every driver will actually notice a bike that’s off to their side when drivers are prone to straight up miss traffic lights that are right in front of their eyeline.
Ohh and I don’t trust the bikes I see riding around, the amount of people on bikes who have crossed In front of me while I’m driving the speed limit while never once looking behind them, causing me to have to slam my brakes on because I don’t want to hit someone on a bike.
Both sides of this argument need to show respect to each other on the road, it’s not a bikes are the problem or cars are the problem, people are the problem.
Like I said I actively try to ensure you guys are safe on the road when I pass you or see you coming up in front.
Where have you ever heard car drivers say something like this? Do you guys just make up fake arguments to have with yourselves?
I’ve seen people say this here and on Reddit. I guarantee you the dickheads doing close passes and yelling at me to get off the road would say this.
EDIT: There’s literally people in this thread saying this…
The issue isn’t with cyclists being on the road, it’s with them blocking the road while going significantly slower than traffic. Motorbikes aren’t a similar problem because they’re quick enough not to disrupt everyone else on the road.
Agreed, which is why we need bike lanes so that traffic isn’t slowed down.
What are we supposed to do? We can’t cycle on the sidewalk, and if we get closer to the curb, it gives many drivers the false impression that they can overtake without crossing into the other lane, not to mention all the potholes, drains, and trash that we then have to cycle over.
It seems like a dick move, but I promise you that most cyclists are purposefully being in your way to make sure you notice, slow down, and give us space. We’re just as unhappy about being around your car as you are to see us. We’d happily fuck the fuck off to our own little lane if someone gave us one.
I heave heard this many times before, yes.
Maybe you should visit Britain, you will hear it there
I love this sub so much. It’s as if confidently incorrect had a weird little clone with just the right mix of sass, poorly thought out arguments, and environmental awareness to vex both cyclists and drivers in equal amounts.
It also works fine with just one person in the car.
Yeah, that’s the most unrealistic part of that. Almost every car here has only one person in it.
i was like, why is an ostrich riding a bike? and why are the people at the back not happier with it?
Drafting an ostrich on a bike sounds easier than drafting a human on a bike. Why haven’t we invested more in this technology?
please, it clearly not an issue when the cyclists are sharing one lane.
if two cars were driving in tandem then it would be a better example.
You left out the part where the ones on the bikes are going the fraction of the speed
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That’s only used in bike races, to act as a booster for extra speed/acceleration, much like a rocket does
Or as a smokescreen. Like in Spyhunter.
Don’t ask about the oilslick.
Missed the part where the people in the car are obese.
I’m obese and I ride a bike. I just like to break the stereotype.
Oh gosh, metric that is too confusing. Can you convert it into units we can all understand like yards, feet, inches
/s
yeah, a global standard like imperial units 🙏
That car must have failed its smog check
it looks like a Chrysler Sebring, so, yeah, by default.
I just get anxious that one of us would make a sudden turn and we both will fall down. I just choose to bike in a straight line.
I won’t lie, I’m split on this one. If I’m in a city and the speed limit is 25 and they are going 15, I’m patient behind them. The next traffic light is going to slow me down more than a pair of bikes. If I’m somewhere rural, the speed limit is over 50, and im on a road that sees about 10 cars an hour, yes you have the right of way, but it feels really inconsiderate not to move over for a couple seconds to let someone pass.
If there’s only ten cars per hour you should have plenty of options to pass them …
A significant portion of “10 cars per hour” roads look like this:
Attempting to pass by a pair of cyclists abreast is likely not possible to do in a safe manner on such a road.
a) that road definitely is not with a speed limit over 50 and b) you cannot pass even a single bike here in a safe manner, in Germany for example it would be a misdemeanor to even try.
