I’m a resident here in Cupertino, and I ride my bicycle daily. This past month, while biking on the weekend, I’ve noticed a problem, specifically that some road users in the form of scooters and bicycles are going the wrong way on the road.
Reason 1: It’s the law
According to California Vehicle Codes VEH 21200 for bicycles, and 21221 for motorized scooter, the operator is “subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle.“ In other words, the cyclist or person riding the scooter must follow the same rules as drivers and travel on the right hand side of the road (see VEH 21650).
Ride with the flow of traffic.
It’s safer for you, for other cyclists, and it’s the law.
Reason 2: It reduces crash severity
The law is here for good a good reason – it’s here to ensure the safety of not only you but all road users. By ensuring users are traveling with traffic, instead of counter to traffic, the maximum speed for a collision is reduces. If two bicycles collide, they might have an effective speed of 50 MPH if both are traveling at 25 MPH towards each other. While this may be an unlikely event, this could do significantly more damage to the road user than a much lower speed collision.
Reason 3: It prevents crashes
A couple of weeks ago, I was turning left onto Blaney Ave (green line on the map), and someone was biking south in the bike lane traveling going the wrong way (red line on the map). After looking both ways, I saw the bicycle but barely recognized that they were traveling towards me, and not away from me as I would have expected. I almost pulled out in front of them which would have resulted in a crash. If they were traveling in the correct direction, and so were on the opposite side of the road, this would not have been a near-miss collision.
It’s important when you are biking that you handle your bike and follow the rules in the ways that other road users expect. Not doing so can lead to an accident.
What to do if you are considering riding against traffic
So, what can we do about this? If you find yourself about to go against traffic, why not cross the street instead at a light? As an alternative, you could go with traffic and make a u-turn at the appropriate spot, or even take a side street or a different route that doesn’t require you to cross the street. Sometimes there are convenient parking lots which can be used to get you off busy roads. And lastly, you could dismount and walk on the sidewalk for a short distance if needed. If you are riding with someone twelve or under, you can even ride on the sidewalk the whole way!
I could write may pages about unsafe situations that I’ve seen with collisions or near misses, but I’ll leave you with this – please don’t compromise the safety of yourself and others simply because it’s inconvenient and don’t want to spend an extra minute crossing the road. When you go the wrong way on the road, you’re making it more dangerous for everyone and build a bad reputation for non-car road users.