Knoxify

I’ve been a cyclist for almost 15 years, and dur­ing that time I’ve had more than a few close-encounters with errant dri­vers that seem to have no clue about how to oper­ate their vehi­cle. This isn’t spe­cific to Knoxville — I’ve lived in many South­ern cities includ­ing Bris­tol, Tuscaloosa, Roanoke, Boone, among oth­ers — though the city perks with bad drivers.

Bad form in pass­ing cyclists is among the worse offenses I’ve noticed as of late. And it’s not that hard, really.

The approach

A dri­ver should always slow down when approach­ing a cyclist or a group of cyclists. It’s hard to hear approach­ing cars, espe­cially in a head-wind. Despite this fact, you don’t need to beep your horn to alert the cyclist. This only seeks to spook us, which could cause an acci­dent in itself.

Once posi­tioned behind the cyclist — don’t fol­low too closely — patiently wait until there is ample room in both your lane and that of on-coming traf­fic to pass.

Be advised that the cyclist should be given at least a quar­ter of the lane to ride (more if there is a group). Cyclists hate to ride on the shoul­der of the road not only because it gives cars rea­son to mus­cle them fur­ther off the road, but also for the many bro­ken bot­tles, metal shards and other debris scat­tered there.

Also, city, county and state trans­porta­tion engi­neers for this area rarely pro­vide ade­quate road shoul­ders (or bike lanes) for that matter.

The pass

The actual pass­ing of a cyclist can be a lit­tle hairy depend­ing on the road, and level of on-coming traf­fic. Use good judge­ment in all situations.

I sug­gest dri­vers only pass on straight stretches of road because you can’t see on-coming traf­fic on bends or curvy roads. You’d think this is com­mon sense, but I’ve seen many, many dri­vers come close to a head-on col­li­sion because they don’t wait to pass until it’s safe.

Hon­estly, it’s not worth your life, the cyclists’, or that of other dri­vers’ to save a few seconds.

Knoxville has its share of moun­tain­ous roads, which makes this a valu­able point to remem­ber for locals.

In the process of pass­ing the cyclist, give them a foot or two of space but not the entire lane. We expect the car to be close and will ride accord­ingly. Swerv­ing into the next lane or pass­ing within inches of the cyclist is bad form.

If you make a move to pass, but then decide against it because of an on-coming car, sim­ply apply the brakes and duck back behind the cyclist. Do not under any cir­cum­stances assume that the cyclist will run off the road for you because you made an error in your judgement.

Cyclists are not pro­tected by hun­dreds of pounds of metal and airbags. We have a hel­met and thin cloth­ing — pave­ment hurts folks.

If you run a cyclist off the road, they have a legal right to report your vehi­cle to the police. They can also sue you.

Again, it’s not worth sav­ing a few sec­onds to pass a cyclist unsafely.

More infor­ma­tion and resources

The Knoxville Regional Trans­porta­tion Plan­ning Orga­ni­za­tion has put together some great resources on cycling, includ­ing a PDF of Knoxville traf­fic laws relat­ing to cyclists. It’s also worth check­ing out the other infor­ma­tion listed on their Web site.

Hon­estly, much of this should be basic review for most folks that stud­ied for their dri­vers’ license but it’s always worth reviewing.

The most impor­tant thing to remem­ber is that a cyclist has a legal right to use most roads for trans­porta­tion just like dri­vers. Respect every­one on the road, and feel good that you are doing your fel­low man/woman a favor.

If you have any ques­tions about proper eti­quette for shar­ing the road with cyclists, please post a com­ment on this entry or con­tact me directly.

Note: This entry was orig­i­nally pub­lished on Patrick’s blog.