The Simple Beauty of Following Right-of-Way
It’s Spring! The weather is warming, the cyclists are swarming, and motorists are alert to us everywhere.
As a guy whose primary means of transport for over fifty years has been my bicycle, I appreciate how turf battles over pavement take a breather this time of year. Perhaps, with so many cyclists filling the bike lanes, it’s difficult for drivers to begrudge us the blacktop that spooled empty through the winter. Perhaps it’s simply that improving weather improves everyone’s mood.
Still, the ongoing tension between cyclists and drivers — and how we share pavement — persists.
In theory, everyone loves cyclists. Urban descendants of cowboys, pedalers are free-spirits in fresh air; integrating fitness and honoring the environment as we go about our day.
In fact, drivers hate proximity to actual cyclists. Folks encased in massive, powerful, potentially destructive vehicles get nervous around nimble, vulnerable bicycles. They’re uncertain how we’re going to move, yet keen to the knowledge that pressing their pedal foot too hard could kill us. Meanwhile, the libertine impulse in many cyclists induces us to run stoplights, weave lanes, and travel in the wrong direction. Thereby validating driver’s suspicions.
Easing tensions between cyclists and motor vehicle drivers involves rethinking our relationship in both directions.
Cyclists: reframe your view of the road. Instead of approaching an intersection by figuring, “I can dash across before that guy hits me,” consider, “Will accelerating distress the oncoming driver?” Every time you reconsider an impulsive burst by acknowledging its effect on others, you will cycle more prudently.
Drivers: treat us like any other vehicle on the road. Give us space. Slow down. Don’t honk unless we are doing something wrong. When you have right-of-way, take it, carefully. When you don’t have right-of-way: yield.
The rules of our roads are quite simple: stay right; pass left; obey signals and signs; yield to oncoming traffic before making turns. When everyone — in every form of vehicle — obeys these rules, traffic flows smoother and safer.
During this benevolent time of year, I find many motorists abandon these basic rules in dealing with cyclists. Instead of following right-of-way protocol, they go into auto-yield. Perhaps they are trying to be nice. Perhaps they just want us gone. Regardless, the result creates increased frustration for everyone.
Often, when I slide toward the middle of a multi-lane road, slow down, and put out my arm to indicate a left turn, a well-intentioned oncoming driver slows, stops, and waves me on. Unfortunately, they’ve just blocked my view of any vehicle coming up on their right. So, I don’t move. I wave them on. They signal back, more emphatically. Then they get aggravated, sometimes even roll their window and decry my ungratefulness. Meanwhile, I’m straddling my bike in the middle of the road. Vulnerable, to be sure, but in less danger than crossing the yellow line without determining all is clear. Which I can’t do until the well-intentioned driver moves out of the way. Thus, another cyclist/motorist interaction turns sour.
Drivers, please, know that treating a cyclist as an exception to the rules of right-of-way worsens the dichotomy between us. Grant us the full rights-of-way enjoyed by other vehicles (which happens to be the law in Massachusetts and every other state). But also exercise the right-of-way when it is yours. We occupy different vehicles, but our anomalies do not require special consideration.
Cyclists, please. Know that the rules of the road apply to us as well as motorists. These rules may seem onerous for the light and agile creatures we are, but the same rules have to apply to every vehicle on the road.
When we all follow right-of-way, taking and yielding our due, we grant each other the highest form of mutual respect.
