Bikers have long fumed at cars and trucks that brush them off the road, or speed past at a frighteningly higher rate of speed than the bicyclist. For that reason, many of them applaud any traffic calming efforts that slow vehicular traffic and acknowledge that the road belongs to more than just the auto. On the other hand, many of the traffic calming techniques can be a nightmare for a bicyclist. Speed humps, for example, are just an inconvenience to motorists. But a biker working up velocity on a fast roadthe kind of road where the humps are most likely to be installedcan be jolted or even thrown off by that same bump in the road.
Traffic circles are terrors for bicyclists.
As the cyclists hug the right side of the road in the circle, cars suddenly turn into their lanes to exit from the circle. Neckdowns and pinchers intended to slow cars may force bicyclists to merge with auto traffic going at a greatly disparate speed. Even marked bicycle lanesused in some traffic calming schemes to help share the roadcan be dangerous if cyclists are suddenly confronted by opening doors on parked cars, vehicles backing out of driveways, or auto traffic squeezing into their lane to get by other cars in a narrow street. And left turns from bike lanes are a problem for bicyclists. There is no easy solution.