Life is complicated. Sometimes it’s beautifully complicated: the splendiferous colors of autumn, the many emotional hues of love, and the challenges and rewards of parenting and work all come to mind. Other times it’s vexingly so: doing your taxes, sorting your recycling, and extricating yourself from a marriage once the emotional hues of love have faded to a dull grey. It ain’t simple is all I’m saying, and to get by in life we must recognize this complexity and above all be adaptable while still remaining fundamentally true to ourselves–laterally stiff yet vertically compliant, if you will.
But that’s not how it works on the social medias. Here, life is binary. Like or dislike. Republican or Democrat. Go around the truck to the left and die or go around to the right and die:
Pick your poison: Swerving into traffic to avoid a box truck parked in the bike lane, or passing on the inside and almost getting left hooked by the driver of a lifted pickup truck.
— Streetsblog New York (@StreetsblogNYC) October 15, 2024
Paint is not protection on NYC's streets. #bikenyc pic.twitter.com/0cu46FDUJq
In order to stoke outrage, advocates must perpetuate the idea that as cyclists we’re constantly beset with life or death situations–and yes, from time to time we certainly are. Furthermore, they are absolutely right that the current situation out on the streets is in many ways unacceptable, and that it is a basic responsibility of our municipal governments to endeavor to improve it. Basically it’s a shitshow out there, and painting more lines on the street isn’t going to do much of anything.
Nevertheless, there’s a pernicious aspect to the way advocates present this, which is that it supposes cyclists don’t have any agency. For example, they’re always saying that when drivers park in the bike lanes it “forces cyclists into traffic.” Now of course drivers shouldn’t park in bike lanes, and we should do whatever needs to be done to prevent that from happening. But in the meantime, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s more important to remember that you have choices and that these people can’t “force” you to do anything at all.
The same thing goes for this whole “pick your poison” scenario in the Tweet embedded above. So there’s a truck blocking the bike lane:
According to Streetsblog, you have two choices in this situation:
Swerving into traffic to avoid a box truck parked in the bike lane, or passing on the inside and almost getting left hooked by the driver of a lifted pickup truck.
This is absolutely wrong; it’s like saying if someone presents you with a pint glass full of vodka you must choose to either drink it all or throw it in the person’s face. In fact, you have many choices, and the most conservative one is to dismount your bicycle and use the sidewalk:
[Who remembers schluffing?]
I’m not saying it’s an attractive option, nor is it the one I’d choose. In fact, when I see signs like this I get really pissed off, because nobody ever tells you to get out of your car and push it:
Still, there’s nothing more important than remaining alive, and if someone finds themselves in a situation where they’re genuinely concerned or uncomfortable, it’s far, far better than “swerving into traffic.” Yet I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone who’s advocate-adjacent remind new cyclists that if things get hairy or they feel like they’re in over their head that they can always dismount and walk, and that bicyclists should never “swerve.”
As for more confident cyclists, there is no reason to pick one of those two “poisons,” nor is there a need to dismount and walk. (Though you may or may not want to–GASP–put a foot down.) The first thing to do is something else advocate-adjacent people never suggest, which is slow down:
Please note I’m not suggesting the rider in the video was going too fast. But I am saying that one thing drivers and cyclists share in common is they resent absolutely anything that requires them to slow down, even a little bit. With drivers this manifests itself in their passing you too closely or honking at you because they have to wait maybe five seconds to get by you safely. With cyclists this manifests itself in their cutting off pedestrians and shouting ON YOUR LEFT at people and saying they were “forced to swerve into traffic” because there was an obstruction in the bike lane.
Okay, anyway, the reason you slow down is so that you can do something else which humans detest no matter whether they’re riding a bike or driving a car, and that’s yield:
Yes, it is inadvisable to squeeze between the truck and the parked cars due to the lack of visibility and the lack of space for maneuvering, as well as the possibility the driver of the truck is going to walk right out in front of you. But that doesn’t mean you just have to swerve into traffic and take your chances with a lifted pickup truck. Thanks to the innovative “slowing and yielding” technique, you can then look behind you and ascertain whether there’s a large menacing vehicle that is about to overtake you. If there is, you can let it pass. You may even opt to let additional vehicles pass as well. Then, when it’s safe to do so, you can ride around the truck on the right-hand side, re-enter the bike lane once you’ve passed the truck, and live to ride another day. It’s not only simple but relatively stress-free, so much so that instead of making a video about it when you get home you might not even remember it.
But yes, I realize all this requires coming to terms with the presence of the truck, which some people are unwilling to do. In that case there’s also the Jeremy Vine technique, which is to position yourself as closely to the truck as possible and then allow it to run you over:
But this is Advanced Smugness, and not for the amateur.