With all this news about safety on the road for cyclists lately, I wonder if anyone else besides me has questions about the logistics of sharing the road?
When I got my driver's license, we didn't have "bike lanes", so I never learned how to deal with them as a driver (besides "don't drive in them").
So I thought it might be interesting to start a thread where we can discuss best practices for sharing the road with each other (cyclists, drivers, pedestrians) and ask any questions we might have.
So, I'll start. My question is about bike lanes, as both a pedestrian and an occasional cab-rider. (And very occasionally, a driver, although I don't have a car of my own, so I hardly ever drive in the city.)
How do cars pull over safely on a street with bike lanes (e.g. to let someone out of the car, or pick them up, etc.). The reason I ask is because, as someone who occasionally takes cabs, I always feel strange about a cab driver pulling into the bike lane to pick me up if I hail one on the street because I know they're blocking the bike lane while I'm getting in (or getting out). But I'm not sure how else they could do it.
I was talking to a cyclist about it just now, and I suggested that maybe they should not pull into the bike lane, but simply stop in the car lane and wait for a gap in bikes and the pedestrian can cross the bike lane to get into the car once the way is clear. But she just told me that she got doored that way and would just prefer that the car pull into the bike lane (as long as there isn't a cyclist close by) and she can go around it.
Anyhow, if anyone has answers, or other questions, post them here!
I think it would be great to have public education campaigns about how to share the road properly. I think a lot of people just don't KNOW what rules or conventions they're supposed to follow, due to the way the infrastructure is designed.