The rule everybody quotes in half

1Look

Half a sentence, highlighted

That is how the rule gets quoted, at you, in the street, by somebody who has read the yellow part. The grey part is longer and it is where you live.

2The idea

What people say, and what it says

What everybody quotes: ride as far right as practicable. What the statute in one real state actually says is that a rider going slower than the normal speed of traffic rides as close as practicable and safe to the right-hand kerb or edge of the roadway — except under the following situations, and then it lists four of them.

The exceptions are not a loophole and they are not fine print. They are part of the same sentence, they are numbered, and the law spends more words on them than on the rule they modify.

3The idea

The four things it does not ask of you

The four, close to the words they are written in.
When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle going the same way.
When preparing for a left turn, at a junction or into a driveway.
When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions — and the list it gives includes fixed or moving objects, parked or moving vehicles, other bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, and substandard width lanes.
When approaching a place where a right turn is allowed.

Read the third one twice. Parked vehicles are named in the law, which means riding wide of a parked car is not you bending the rule. It is you using one of the four things the rule is written around.

4The idea

Substandard width lane, which is the big one

The same statute defines it: a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane. That is the whole test, and it is about the lane, not about you.

One state’s own guidance puts a figure on it — under fourteen feet is too narrow to share. That is that state’s number and not automatically yours, but the idea travels: get out of the saddle and look at the lane, and if there is not room for a car and you in it side by side, the lane is the problem and the law already knows.

5Your turn

Shrink the lane

Set it as narrow as it will go first and look at the picture, because that is what a squeeze past on a narrow street actually looks like drawn to scale.

6Decide

A neighbour tells you the law says you have to keep right at all times.

7The idea

Why nearly every rider believes the opposite

The rule gets taught in half because half of it fits on a sign and the whole of it does not. So most riders, most parents and quite a few drivers genuinely believe the kerb is a legal requirement, and ride accordingly.

On an ordinary street with cars parked down one side, at least one of the four exceptions is nearly always live. Your own state or province writes its own version of this rule, and the wording and the exceptions are not identical everywhere — so the job is to find yours and read the whole thing, which is a skill you get taught properly in the next badge.

8Find them

Which of these are on the exceptions list?

Tap the ones that count.

9Say it

The line for anybody quoting half of it

It works because it is not a claim about your rights, it is an instruction to go and look. Nobody argues for long with somebody asking them to read the rest of a paragraph.

10Do it

Before you leave this page