Kate Clarkson: Unsafe for cyclists

Regarding the Dec. 29 news article “NCDOT calls for new curbs on bicyclists”: The solid yellow line was painted on the road in the first place because it’s not safe to pass there. Why make a law that says you can ignore the line? If an impatient motorist makes an error in judgment, electing to cross the solid yellow line to pass when it is not safe and then – oops – finds himself having to choose between a head-on collision with another vehicle or running a cyclist off the road to the right, we know what he will choose every single time. The motorist will risk killing a cyclist to save himself. You can hardly expect him to think, “Oh, my bad, I guess I’ll just plow right into this oncoming vehicle to punish myself.”

This proposal and the one that cyclists should stay to the right (putting themselves in danger in order to allow motorists to squeeze by them when it is not safe) amount to making it legal to run cyclists off the road to save time. Safety-conscious cyclists will have no choice but to ignore these ill-conceived laws, to live to fight it out in court.

This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 1:40 PM with the headline "Kate Clarkson: Unsafe for cyclists."