Passing Pedestrians and Cyclists

How do we determine one metre or less! I had a situation where a cyclist complained to the police that I was too close. I didn't think so and there were no known witnesses including the police. I was issued a ticket at home and was not permitted to ask for more information.

Cyclist can do this as they have our plate numbers but what do we have! Court is the answer but here in Victoria cyclists rule and that just my opinion. We are spending millions on bike lanes to the detriment of vehicles. Three lanes of a major thoroughfare from the city reduced to one lane. More vehicles at a traffic light than before and causing more pollution from idling. Having to wait two and sometimes three traffic light cycles before getting through. I won't go into rules of the road except to say while walking my dog through a crosswalk with cars stopped some fool on a bike almost took us out cursing us at the same time.

The number of persons using bikes for whatever reasons is well below 10% yet their lobby is strong. Our municipality is old and our underground infrastructure is failing and needs to be replaced! But guess what? Bike lanes are getting priority! In Victoria I can foresee a lot more road rage with cars versus bikes.

I read about penalties for passing too close and there could be heavy fines or prison time at the extreme. People having stores vandalized with the offender arrested and released with promise to appear happens all the time.

As I have stated in the past I was a keen cyclist riding thousands of miles annually - in Montreal which FYI is truly the cycling capital of Canada. I club raced Tuesday nights all summer and rode in the Tour de L'isle around the island. An event that attracts tens of thousands of cycles. Google it.

Here in Victoria I may have ridden 10 kilometre in 5 years and not on bike paths as they can be dangerous with the rat packs pushing other cyclists out of the way.

Until cyclists are ticketed for their moving violations it will get worse. I do not see it happening because motorists are seldom stopped. There is a four way stop not far from the police station and it has become stop signs are merely a suggestion. Complaints to the PD are met with - too busy, our cars are too obvious so people will be careful!

If you consider that most cyclists ride at least a metre away from parked cars to prevent door openings, plus you add another 1.5 metres clearance and most vehicles are about 2 metres wide that equates to a space of about 4 plus metres of roadway occupied by both.

Here in Oak Bay the majority of streets are narrow and with cars parked on both sides two opposing vehicles have to find a spot to duck into. Imagine following a car because you cannot pass it.

As I said bicycles rule. Or the squeaking wheel gets the grease.

That only works if the bike riders are following their side of the law…. If not it puts the driver in danger on the left or requires him/her to drive 25/30 kms for longer than I would like.

So a meter would put me in the ditch on the left. This group persists in riding like this after repeated calls to both police and municipality.

Since they are on my route home and only road home, what about their responsibility to not create accidents?

This is not a sanctioned bike race but their group rides which they feel entitled to. They will not move over for any reason. Their president is a fireman and his group rides cause near car accidents. 

They run through and wobble the elderly and run young kids off the road.

Have you also noticed a sense of entitlement to pedestrians? They just step out, don’t look, assume they have the right.

I grew up differently being taught that one wrong step can kill you and watch out for cars and they have a blind spot where the side window meets the windshield.

People step onto the roads/crosswalks while looking at their phones not looking left or right  and have no awareness of anything around them.

It is the strangest thing and now the driver will be all to blame and not that drivers are not.

I think of last November, a dark rainy and wet night.

I was turning left and I saw the signal for the crosswalk and those that walked across. The hand signal had stopped. What I didn’t see was the father and daughter all in black step out in my blind spot trying to make it at the last moment.

What saved them is the child’s coat opened and a flash of white appeared and I stopped in time. The father tried to blame me.

Where is their responsibility?

Another time again a pedestrian all in black, same dark, wet, rainy night and again a small strip of white on their shoe at the  very last minute saved them.

I am still haunted by both situations.

Not sure why they included motorcycles given the rest of the vehicles listed are typically slower than cars.

Of course, given the number of idiots who try to share lanes with motorcycles, maybe it will have an effect.

this law is very naive plus has a great flaw, if a cyclist falls for whatever reason a vehicle will kill the person right away. I have seen pedestrians rolled over by cars because the pedestrian has turned around. When a person turns around occupies a space of about 70 cms.

how does a the law enforce this distance of 1 m when the bike lane has about 1 m wide? the car should move 1 m to the left and then it will crash with the oncoming traffic, forcing the car to slow down and drive at 18 km/h (no regular person bikes at speed higher than 18 to 20 km per hour.

anyways we need people with experience writing laws. we need studies

On sideroads without a shoulder there will be some problems.

Most pedestrians walk about 2 free off the pavement but some do not and that makes space problematic. The only way to pass legally then would be to cross into the oncoming lane, if there is no traffic.

Bicycles are a slightly different issue. They usually ride about 2 feet in from the edge of the pavement which does not allow enough legal space at all to pass without crossing into the oncoming lane.

If the lanes were all 12 feet all should be fine but some are not.

Can you visualize the shmoz on a reasonably busy road with moderate bicycle traffic? Your average driving speed would work out to 10 km/h if you were lucky.

As somewhat newcomers to Kelowna, my wife and I are baffled by the frequency with which so many drivers here cross the shoulder line.

In east Kelowna, where we live, it seems people were taught this in whatever driving lessons they allegedly took. The white line is worn away around almost every curve and even on long, straight stretches, many will drive with their right-side wheels on the wrong side of the line, for 10’s of metres.

As a cyclist, I observe that the bike lanes in Kelowna are basically danger zones.