The question of when to ride in the flow of MV traffic vs. when to ride along side it never seems to have a good answer and it didn't for me this morning, either.
I usually try to avoid riding on Regent St. during the heavy congestion times, but this morning I had to return books to the library, so I found myself riding east on Regent St. in heavy traffic.
After leaving the SW Path, I rode along the side of Regent St. heading east and when I got going fast enough, I moved over into the flow of motor vehicle (MV) traffic, proceeding down to Brooks St. with the traffic. At the intersection of Brooks and Regent, an SUV was stopped in the left lane (to turn left). Another car (a sedan) was approaching from behind the SUV, and proceeded to move into my lane of traffic, forcing me over to the side of the road so he didn't have to slow down to get around the SUV. He honked his horn as he passed me, at the same time pointing to the right side of the road as he drove ahead. I shook my head, since I didn't believe I was obligated to move to curbside to let him get by me. He had to stop at the corner of Regent and Park St. for a red light, so when I got up to his vehicle (his rider's side window was already down), I told him in no uncertain terms that he was in the wrong, not me. He countered that he, too, was a bicyclist, and said the law requires that bicyclists "not impede" the flow of traffic - that bicyclists are required to ride as close as possible to the right side of the street when they are moving slower than the flow of MV traffic, and that I was needlessly impeding the flow of traffic. What else should I have told him?
The light turned green as we were talking, so I didn't get his name but the license number of the car he was driving was "RUP 600".
Mike Neuman
_______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
