Blocking the bike lane

Posted on March 23, 2010 by .
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The springtime weather is absolutely gorgeous in California this week.

This video is for Biking In L.A., who occasionally mentions blocked bike lanes. I shot this 13 second video last night during my evening commute, as the driver of the silver Honda didn’t know how to stay in his lane.

I normally don’t mind motorists driving in the bike lane — they sweep debris out of the lane, after all — but only if the lane is unoccupied. Before I turned the video camera on, the driver of the silver Honda Accord drifted into the bike lane immediately adjacent to me while passing me. I didn’t look into this car but he was probably on the cell phone and had no clue how badly he was driving. Grrr.

I stayed behind the car as we approached the intersection because I thought maybe this driver was turning, but he didn’t.

In the video, I joke about violating CVC 21208 (California’s Mandatory Bike Lane law) as I pull left of the bike lane stripe, but really there’s no violation — the MBL only applies for cyclists traveling slower than the “normal speed of traffic.”

My 10 mile ride evening bike ride from Menlo Park to Palo Alto was mostly uneventful for me, though I saw some interesting things. I witnessed a fender bender on Rengstorff Avenue when somebody rear-ended a car that had stopped for a turn. *scrrrrchhh* *boom*.

A broken down truck on Central Expressway was good practice for me merging into 45 mph traffic — I’m glad no policemen from Ennis, Texas patrol in California.

Then at the Mountain View Caltrain station, I watched a guy run across the tracks directly in front of the southbound #372 express train. I gasped and had my cell phone out to call 911, but the guy just made it across. I hope the conductor on the northbound train he wanted to catch cited the turkey.

How’s your bike riding going this week?



See also:

  1. NTSB recommendation rebuttals
  2. Merging into a bike lane is not the same as turning across it
  3. Bike Lane door zone animation
  4. Bike lane passing lane


  • Mark

    A bunch of SVBC folks on the peninsula went for a ride on Sunday around San Carlos and Redwood Shores. While riding down Redwood Shores Parkway, we got passed by a San Carlos cop. A little while later we caught up with him. He'd pulled over to the side of the road apparently to talk on the phone. (A good idea) However, he completely blocked the bike lane, so we had to go around him. Gladwyn noted that this is the way things should be: The car is using the narrow lane, while the bikes are using the nice, wide lane. I liked that positive spin on things.

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