Those Double Yellow Marks Keep Motorists in Line

Dear Street Smart:

On the Bristol Street off-ramp on the northbound San Diego Freeway there is a double yellow line that swings out from the curb on the left side of the off-ramp. It seems odd. Why does the line do that?

Dale E. Cornelison

Laguna Hills

No, the line painters didn’t down too many gin fizzes before they painted that funny, twisting yellow line. There is a method to it all.

This particular off-ramp funnels one lane of traffic off the freeway, but it divides into four lanes by the time it reaches the signal lights at Bristol Street. Two of the lanes are for motorists turning right, one is for those going straight and one is for left turners.

The yellow line curves out away from the left curb and then swings back in for one simple reason: To form an imaginary “island” to protect all the cars that line up to wait to turn left.

This tactic is not uncommon. Lines are often painted on streets to steer cars away from the queue of motorists waiting to make a left-hand turn at an intersection.

Dear Street Smart:

It is easy to see you are not a bicycle rider.

Often there is less than two feet between the bike lane and the cars whizzing past us. If we were to swing out when the door of a tinted-window car opens, we’d be goners. Parked cars are the bane of our existence anyway.

When we meet up with a tinted car at an intersection it is impossible to make eye contact, and we don’t know if the driver has seen us on our bicycle. It’s really scary, and I think tinted glass should be illegal.

Jean Brookhart

Huntington Beach

Are you trying to hurt my feelings?

First, for the record, I am indeed a bicycle rider. In recent years, I have participated in several triathlons, putting in hundreds of miles in the saddle during bouts of serious training. And as you read this, I will be just back from a six-day, 400-mile benefit ride through Oregon for the American Lung Assn. (assuming I wasn’t flattened by a logging truck).

Now for more important matters. Your comments about tinted windows are well taken, although there are lots of tint-loving motorists out there who would heartily disagree with the conclusion that the smoky haze on their windows should be outlawed.

You seem, however, to have misunderstood my advice about avoiding the doors of parked cars. I did not mean to imply that a bicyclist should swing way out into traffic when a car door is suddenly opened in front of him or her, and thus risk getting clobbered by the rush of traffic. What I’m talking about is defensive bike riding.

Most experienced cyclists I know agree that it is a perfectly acceptable tactic to carefully steer a bicycle slightly away from parked cars so there is enough leeway that a door won’t hit you if it suddenly swings open. A biker only has to be about three or four feet from the side of a parked car to have enough clearance to avoid the door.

Keep in mind that such maneuvers must be performed carefully. A cyclist should begin before reaching a line of parked cars, inching out slowly so auto traffic can react accordingly. On all but the narrowest streets, there is plenty of room for cars to get around a cyclist practicing such defensive riding.

There are motorists, of course, who will jam their horns, shout expletives and gesture obscenely, totally unaware that bicyclists by law have a right to the roadway.

Do not become alarmed. These are among the many exotic sights and sounds that can be witnessed on a normal Saturday morning ride in Orange County.