Originally Posted by Doug64

I am involved with teaching bike safety in our school district. In our program we teach the kids, 5th graders, to ride on the roads. Our graduation ride culminates with a ride around our small city, including busy traffic, turns at traffic signals and stop signs, and rules of the road; essentially everything you would teach a young motor vehicle driver. I was really sad to see Oregon adopt the "Idaho Stop" for cyclists: slow down at the stop sign, and if it is clear, ride through it. My point is that we advocate using the roads, but not as aggressively as the Cycling Savvey folks.

This was part of our route through Iowa while riding Highway 20 across the U.S. As folks said, situational awareness is important. Often trucks would come up behind us and we could see things getting tight. We just pulled off and made friends with a couple of truckers. We could also see approaching trucks getting set up to do a pass, and would also pull over onto the shoulder. The situation required a lot of vigilance, but we did not think it was unsafe or dangerous.