joejack951

Let's do some math. We'll compare the time needed to pass a 50mph single vehicle versus 50 cyclists riding two abreast at 25mph. We'll assume a speed of 55mph for the passer.

For the 50mph vehicle, let's say it's 10 feet long and that the passer wants to leave 1.5 car lengths (15 feet) between him and the passee before moving back over. So, to get 25 feet ahead with a 5mph (7.33 ft/s) speed differential it would take 3.4 seconds.

For the 25mph pack at 200 feet long (100 feet is 25 really small bicycles) with a 30mph (44 ft/s) speed differential and leaving the same space before moving over (total of 225 feet), the passer would need 5.1 seconds.

Not really much of a difference, eh? It's certainly far from making one easy to pass and one impossible.

Sure, if there's oncoming traffic you need to wait for it to clear but it's pretty rare for there to be zero breaks in oncoming traffic. Being able to use the passing lane for 5 seconds is not unreasonable or uncommon on 55mph roads (those roads tend to have few curves).

Now, if sightlines are really that bad that you cannot pass the whole group at once then the group could make the decision to break up to allow for smaller groups to be passed one at a time, or the group could just slow down. That still requires no oncoming traffic and some line of sight on the road. If the group chooses not to accomodate someone by taking all of those measures, it's still no excuse for the driver to execute a dangerous pass.

joejack951

Why?

islandboy

I ride lands end frequently because it is an out of the way country road with very, very little traffic. It is also a narrow, narrow road with a quite a few dips in the road. The Saanich peninsula has numerous roads like this that are selected by cyclists to avoid the heavily trafficked main freeway that collects the majority of through traffic. For this reason there are a lot of areas on these out of the way roads that I as a lone cyclist will move out from the curb if I feel a car, approaching from behind, can not safely pass.

While I do drive a car, I am amazed at the lax enforcement of traffic laws at the court level. The message has been for years that somehow when there is an "accident" the driver shares the responsibility with the automobile industry. The focus is continually on improving the safety of vehicles as if that will prevent an accident caused by a spilled cup of coffee, aggressive driving, alcohol or just plain stupidity.

One comment referred to the long history of automobile DRIVERS causing death and who should be held to a higher level of responsibility. A very good question when one considers the damage caused by bicycle operators when they are at fault.

islandboy

As I said in my previous post it is a choice road to avoid traffic. The speed limit is, I believe, 40 Kph; something this particular peleton could easily attain on this road.

Pig_Chaser

I was going to lambaste you for saying that single yellow means passing is permitted and i was going to quote my good old Alberta Driver's Handbook But then i thought, hmmm, better quote the BC handbook:

So you're absolutely correct about the yellows. The article only mentions Solid Yellow, but never whether it's double or single. If it were single and passing were permitted then i concede are correct.

closetbiker

You also might also want to consider that this area is not rural.

dougmc

Sounds good, but you sort of fudged things by only letting him pass at 5 mph over the speed of the cars. In the real world, 5 mph faster is on the slow side. Also, when you're about to pass the cyclists, you'd usually have slowed down to 25 mph first, and so accelerating to 55 mph will take some time -- more time than it takes to accelerate from 50 mph to 55 mph.

Though really, comparing a peleton to a few cars isn't really fair. Instead, if there's 50 bicycles, let's compare that to 50 cars. Or, if you want to suggest that the average car has 1.5 people in it (made up figure!), then let's compare to 33 cars. How long would it take you to pass 33 cars? If they're all driving legally and not tailgating, you'd have to pass 33 times. (I guess the tailgating laws don't apply to bicycles? Or the cops just haven't thought of using them on cyclists yet?) And if they are all tailgating, you'd probably *never* be able to pass safely, unless the road widened.

Ultimately, that's the bottom line. If you can't safely pass somebody doing 25 mph, you don't pass them. Even if it takes an hour, you wait until it's safe to pass. Being stuck behind them for some period of time doesn't change what's safe and what's not. (It might change your perception of what an acceptable risk is, but it seems some people let this perception change far too quickly.)

joejack951

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I didn't feel like putting that much time into my theoretical passing situation calculations. Thanks for making me feel lazy

As to the 55mph speed, I just picked a constant speed for the passer. I could have chosen 65mph for both situations and the numbers wouldn't have looked all that much different given how small they are to begin with. I could have swung the pendulum more towards the cyclists by having the motorist be driving at 50mph in a tractor trailer but I didn't want to seem like I was being unfair and upset some of our more delicate members