this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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You have to take the lane 100% of the time when there's no bike lane. It's the safest option by far.
Until dick in an emotional support truck runs you down while rage tweeting. Or a soccer mom driving a road-condo turns you to paste as she TikToks about how hard her life is.
And yet it is STILL safer
And despite that, the reaction from some drivers is downright terrifying. I rode down Steeles between Markham and Pickering the other day... there are no shoulders, and you have to take the lane.
Except, you get truckers doing some aggressive shit with their motor/transmission as they creep closer behind you. Call it intimidation, or bullying, but you have to be a hardened cyclist to endure that kind of treatment, and the risk to your life is real.
Safer, yes. But it's like saying it's safer to jump from a plane at 5000 feet without a parachute than it is one that's 10,000 feet. LOL
Trucks often have to use 'engine breaking' or a 'Jake brake' to slow down. Basically, they cut fuel in the intake stroke, changing the engine into a 'compressor' to exchange forward momentum into useless compressed air that gets thrown away in the exhaust. The result is a lot of 'noise' from the truck as it slows down. It's not intimidation, it's a valid way to slow down without excessive wear on wheel brakes. Or, it shouldn't be intimidation. In some municipalities, engine braking or Jake braking isn't permitted.
I'm aware of engine braking, and some were doing that, but I'm referring to drivers inching up behind and REVVING.
And when it was a dickhead in a pick-up truck, they would GAS IT. Two of them actually peeled out as they passed!
A few other drivers would intentionally block the shoulder (when there was one), so I'd either have to be behind a line of cars, or ride off the road. Several would do this to bike lanes, when there was a line at a stop sign, probably because they knew I'd fly past them without any traffic in my lane 😂
I mean, on the same ride, I was also yelled at (while I was on an MUP) by a passing van.
I 100% believe that much of this behaviour was intimidation.
Unfortunately, the bike I was riding doesn't have my usual camera on it, or I would have been able to make a compilation featuring Idiot Drivers of Durham Region and York Region.
And here I am, frustrated that bikes aren't taking the lane where I live. Instead they try to act like super pedestrians who can use the sidewalk, lane, or shoulder, and they ignore traffic signs and signals. I'd rather they were just in the road at that point. It's a stop sign every block, 25 mph road. So we're not exactly slowing down traffic with bikes. Instead I almost hit 2 of them in one trip a couple days ago because they didn't stop and came from behind cars so they were hidden until the last moment.