BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

You are correct! If you're making a left turn you should be in the left lane and a right turn in the right lane unless it's a 2 way street.Are you sure this guy was a cop??? was he in a police uniform?

Yeah, he pulled right along side me in his car and we had this exchange in motion.

What he was trying to say was that I have to ride the right lane until I am sufficiently close to the street I'm going to turn on and then change lanes. I suggested that it seemed like a dangerous thing to do and he didn't care about that-just that I follow the law.

I knew this guy was wrong and I just looked it up; section 3505, item D of the PA vehicle code.

How sad is it that someone like me knows the bike/vehicle code better than a police officer.

You did the right thing by not arguing with him.Never get into an verbal confrontation with a cop.It's scary that this police officer doesn't know the law.I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.I just got into an verbal confrontation with an attorney who told me it's against the law to be riding on any road with a speed limit of 30 mph or over.He knows I cycle on neighborhood roads.I told him he better go back to law school.

lolz. route 51 near aliquippa/going towards monaca is part of the official bike route in that area and the speed limit is 55.

There are too many laws for anyone to keep track of. I was scolded once by a cop for doing exactly the same thing, and being idealistic and all, I did get into it with him on the road. Ten minutes later, I found a bike cop and suggested they might do some internal education. He heaved a big sigh and said "the cruiser cops do the same thing to us, too"

PA's bike laws, here, easily fit on just four pages when printed out. Maybe it would be useful to carry a folded-up copy, for future interactions with law enforcement?

The way it works, really, is that you can be anywhere between the solid white lines you feel you need to be to be safe as long as you aren't impeding traffic.

I always ride on the left on Forbes and Fifth in Oakland and I never had a problem (but I'm usually faster than traffic ).

I often wave and smile to cops--it seems to lower the chance they ever say anything to you.

There are too many laws for anyone to keep track of. I was scolded once by a cop for doing exactly the same thing, and being idealistic and all, I did get into it with him on the road. Ten minutes later, I found a bike cop and suggested they might do some internal education. He heaved a big sigh and said "the cruiser cops do the same thing to us, too"

That makes me really curious. Does anyone know how a cop becomes a bike cop? Do they volunteer for it and then get some extra training/testing? (I'm assuming they start out in a car, which could be wrong.) Do they get education (besides the education of riding on the streets) that other cops don't get? It'd be interesting to know more about how things are within the police force between bike cops and car cops, assuming those roles stay constant.

yes. Usually. (no, that's usually right). Yes. the training usually comes from IPMBA or LEBA, and it's pretty cool.

The woman behind commuteorlando.com (which I think rsprake linked to recently) went through at least part of the LEBA course and blogged about it.

Thanks Lyle, you're a walking (er, pedaling) encyclopedia.