"Do you normally ride in the middle of the road?"

[Cie]

During a rather nice ride with 5 friends yesterday, some chap overtook me in his car, and pointed over his roof, to the left hand side of the road. I checked to make sure my indicators were off, and carried on riding.

I rejoined the back of the ride at the next set of lights, only to have this bloke squeeze his car alongside me with his window down. "Do you normally ride in the middle of the road?" he asked. Well, yes, because that's what I've been trained to do!

However, Rule 160 states that:

"Once moving you should keep to the left, unless road signs or markings indicate otherwise. The exceptions are when you want to overtake, turn right or pass parked vehicles or pedestrians in the road".

But I was taught to use the whole road, not just my side, so what's my response to this guy's question? And where do I stand legally if I straighten bends by crossing the center line?

[fungus]

Hello Cie,

I am not a biker, but I straight line bends when I have a full view through, and beyond the bend, and there are no hazards present. However, it may be worth considering other drivers perceptions, they may not uderstand the reason for your actions. I would add that as far as the IAM are concerned, they now advise not to cross a white line to offside a bend, but if there are no lines, ok, providing it is safe.

As far as the law is concerned, as long as there is no solid white line on your side, you are not commiting an offence.

Nigel ADI
IAM trainee observer

[Red Herring]

I'm not quite sure I can associate riding a bike with being overtaken by a car.......however looking at the scenario you describe I would have to ask a couple of questions. How long had the car been following you and had the driver clearly been making attempts to pass? If you are riding at such a pace that it would not be unreasonable to expect other traffic to overtake then you should be aware of this and in the event of a following driver looking as if they want to pass then I would expect a rider to facilitate this by moving to the nearside and helping them out a bit. You clearly don't have to do this, you wouldn't be breaking the law by not doing so, however common sense and courtesy suggests you ought to.

With regards to the use of the road unless you get a discount on your VEL then you are clearly entitled to use it all, however you clearly need to check that the road you intend to ride on is clear and this would include rear observation to allow for the possibility of being overtaken. If you were to just move to the offside in order to straightline a bend and in doing so were involved in an incident with an overtaking vehicle then I suspect your actions would be examined as closely as theirs.

[martine]

...I would add that as far as the IAM are concerned, they now advise not to cross a white line to offside a bend...

Not true - as discussed in another thread but to remind you see the IAM handbook: "Advanced Driving: the essential guide" P69 "...don't cross the white line...unless you have excellent visibility".

Which is fair enough really.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I think Red Herring summed it up. If you're likely to be overtaken, and you're aware of someone wanting to overtake, you should be cooperating with them, without endangering yourself, obviously.

The ones who always amaze me, however, are cyclists. At 5 mph, they insist on riding 2, 3, or more abreast, with no apparent awareness or consideration for traffic held up behind them. Yesterday I passed a horse rider coming towards me. Behind her was a "peloton" of cyclists out on a road race, taking up the entire lane. Despite the horse rider frantically waving to them to stay back until the cars on our side were clear, they pressed forward, in a big group. I couldn't keep looking to see what the horse's reaction was, but a spooked horse lashing out in the middle of a group of cyclists would have a pretty devastating effect! On the way home, we had to contend with 3 lads slowly weaving about ahead of us on bikes, one of whom decided to undertake the other two by popping his bike up onto a grass island in the road and back down again. Again, we had to wait until there was a straight clear stretch and fully offside to pass them. How hard is it to ride in a disciplined manner along the edge of the carriageway?!

Didn't see you Cie, did you have an enjoyable ride? Glad to see North Wilts being ever more strongly represented here

[Cie]

Nick, I was in deepest Wales with a different group of riders rather than the North Wilts group.

All, I think what I'm trying to gauge is how do we respond when questioned. Whilst I'm happy to fall back on "Trained to advanced standards, and tested by a Police Class 1 rider" with Joe Public, I wonder if that will stand up to questions by an enthusiastic Police Officer who pulled me over.

Rest assured, in this instance I saw this chap from a long way off, making rapid progress along what appeared to be one of his familiar routes. Of course I left room for him to pull in after his overtake, which is why I was surprised by his actions. I actually wish I'd had the time to have a conversation with him about it.

[7db]

Where were you positioned on the road when he was lining up and executing the overtake?

If the answer is somewhere other than discreetly tucked in, then you may have created the impression in his mind that you were "all over the place".

As for responding to questioning:- politely or not at all. What do you hope to get out of the encounter? Honest and constructive feedback? You'll be lucky. Read my and Daaave's threads on our potentially violent incidents if you think that verbal engagements are harmless. When someone asks you a question like that, they are venting. Let them.

Your take-away is that your riding caused someone who didn't understand it to be concerned enough to break normal social behaviour and challenge you publicly. Regardless of whether he was a Neanderthal dragging his knuckles, or just a bear of little brain, you need to ask yourself whether that's the impression that you want to create in the hard of thinking when they are cocooned in two tons of steel and you are protected by two kilos of cowskin.

Now your answer might be "bollocks to it, I know I was right, I'll position where I've been trained to", which if you have all the answers and you're a driving God, might serve you in good stead.

[Cie]

Now your answer might be "bollocks to it, I know I was right, I'll position where I've been trained to", which if you have all the answers and you're a driving God, might serve you in good stead.

Not a chance, and if I thought that I wouldn't be asking questions, I'd be spouting off that I knew everything.

[fungus]

I stand corrected Martin. It seems to be a thing with some observers in our group.

Nigel ADI
IAM trainee observer

[7db]

Not a chance, and if I thought that I wouldn't be asking questions, I'd be spouting off that I knew everything.

So where were you positioned?

[Cie]

So where were you positioned?

Nearside.

[7db]

So why did the chap point over his roof and ask if you normally rode down the middle of the road if you were nearside throughout his approach and pass?

Did he just make it up or imagine it?

[Cie]

Which is why I would have liked to have a chat with him, to find out what the problem actually was.

Tell me, do you ride?

[Horse]

http://www.cooperbiketraining.org.uk/games/games.htm

Where In The World?

If you've recently taken a CBT or test-level course, then you will probably have been encouraged to ride about a metre out from the kerb, or in the centre of your line. Real-world riding suggests that moving across the lane width can have significant benefits - but also serious risks.

Enter, two mantras:
Safety - View - Advantage
Safety - Stability - View

It doesn't particularly matter which you use, as long as you understand what you can gain from each.

Safety. Children are warned: "Run away from danger". For you, a grown-up, thinking rider, this means keeping as far away from danger as reasonably possible, e.g. if there's a car in the junction to your left, move across to the right of your lane. If there are two hazards (add an oncoming car to the example above) then separate them either in time, i.e. change your speed so that you only encounter one at a time, or distance, i.e. go equidistant between them.

Stability. Choosing the best surface to ride on, i.e good tarmac rather than oil, gravel, horse . . . dust, or sunken drain covers.

View. See and be seen. One classic example of this is following HGVs, several of which now sport warning signs: "If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you". Try to make eye contact with other road users; if the driver at the junction mentioned above can't see you, it's far more likely that he will pull out! A more extreme example of 'View' is positioning for corners, which is really beyond the scope of this 'game'.

Advantage. Again, this is slightly more involved, but one example is adapting your following position to overtake when leaving a bend, using the advantages of an earlier view and the bike's superior acceleration.

In the second version: Safety - Stability - View, Ask yourself how you chose the position in the lane width you're riding in. Then 'project ahead' and choose - or plan - where you want to be, rather than deciding when you get there - by which time it's really too late to decide that you really ought to be somewhere else!

There are plenty of occasions when safety has to over-rule any other gains, and although not explicitly given as an example there ^ (you can't cover everything) being overtaken is one of them.

To gain a safety gap - or perhaps 'encourage/permit' a driver to overtake when you'd like them to - moving left of lane is an option.

Even then, a mate used to stay 'proud' in L1 of motorways as he founf that moving left just encouraged passing drivers to cut in sooner!

[7db]

Which is why I would have liked to have a chat with him, to find out what the problem actually was.

Tell me, do you ride?

What do you guess the problem was?

Lord - no. Not enough wheels on those things.