Driver's Perspective

I much prefer to cycle to my destination in the city, but occasionally I have to carry more than is possible on my bike and am forced to drive. During these trips, I always find it instructive getting the driver’s perspective of using the roads.

When I am driving behind a cyclist who is going slower than I am, as is usually the case, my reaction is that I want to pass the cyclist as soon as possible. Cyclists should always be aware of this. Drivers want to pass you, and they want to do it right away. And some of them will resort to less than ideally safe practices when they do it. It’s amazing how often a cyclist’s life and body are treated with reckless disregard so that a driver can save a few seconds.

The lesson for cyclists here is that they need to cycle in as straight a line as possible and at a steady speed. The driver who is trying to imitate Gilles Villeneuve while passing you is assuming that your speed and trajectory will not vary. You may be hit if you don’t move as the driver expects you to.

Right turns are one of my least favourite driving manoeuvres, especially at busy intersections. Drivers have to observe and process a remarkably large amount of information in a very short amount of time while deciding when to make a right. They are often a bit stressed while doing this. If you are cycling up fast behind a car that is signalling right, don’t assume the driver will see you. If you go past on the right, you may be hit. Always assume the driver doesn’t see you in these instances, and act accordingly.

Cyclists who put themselves in the driver's position will be much safer.

Sneaking Ahead

Lately, the concept that bikes are vehicles, and so should behave as such, is seeming to sink in with more and more of my fellow cyclists: I see an ever-increasing percentage of them signalling turns and stops; fewer red lights are being run; and incidents of other types of rule-flouting behaviour are also becoming rarer. Still, I do occasionally see, for example, cyclists riding against the direction of traffic on major roads or weaving wildly around cars as though they were part of a circus act. And the odd cyclist will still brazenly ride through a red light.

But on the whole, cyclist behaviour on city streets is much improved nowadays.

A bit of a throwback to the days of rampant red-light running, though, is what might be described as the red-light sneak. This is when a cyclist is temporarily stopped at a red light but then starts to slowly ease through the intersection after the red light has been showing for a while. Drivers, and most cyclists, know that you can’t proceed until the light has actually turned green. But some cyclists seem to think it is okay for them to run a red light because the light will be turning green soon and because they aren’t speeding through the intersection. It is as though they are thinking that because they are moving slowly, running a red light doesn’t count as a traffic-rule violation. I mean, hey, the light was about to change, wasn’t it?

An awful lot of bad blood still exists between drivers and cyclists. This sort of red-light running doesn’t help matters.