Only in certain circumstances.

"21202. (a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except under any of the following situations:

(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle proceeding in the same direction.

(2) When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.

(3) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes) that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge, subject to the provisions of Section 21656. For purposes of this section, a "substandard width lane" is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.

(4) When approaching a place where a right turn is authorized.

(b) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway of a highway, which highway carries traffic in one direction only and has two or more marked traffic lanes, may ride as near the left-hand curb or edge of that roadway as practicable. "

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21202.htm

Most states are similar in that regard.

If I'm in the middle of a travel lane it's for safety, not annoyance of drivers.

if a cyclist is riding down the middle of the lane, going 20mph slower than traffic, not avoiding hazards but chatting with his buddy next to him.

That's unsafe.

I know that from the car I don't see the shoulder hazards as easily as I do from my two-wheeled vantage point.

I don't get the side-by-side cycling thing in general but if they're traveling slower than the traffic wants to go, too bad IF there is a legitimate reason to claim the lane. If there isn't, the cyclists deserve to be cited for blocking traffic.

Personally, I see far more instances of drivers just being impatient than I do cyclists riding slowly in the travel lane. There are two stretches of road on my normal circuit where the speed limit is 15 MPH and I get passed by idiot motorists all the time, even though I'm cruising at or above the speed limit. I think it's just reflexive for some drivers to assume that cyclists are obstructions slowing them down. To be clear, most motorists don't act that way but there are still plenty who do.

if he's riding chatting with his buddy next to him, blocking the lane. In CA riding two abreast is illegal, except under the aforementioned circumstances.

Most cyclists don't know this, and if you stop 100 riders and ask them what the law is you'll get at least 100 different answers, including unintentionally humorous ones.

Occasionally I tangle with BRNs (Bike Rights Nazis) who seem to enjoy going out of their way to piss drivers off. They make it hard for all of us (I'm a cyclist who rides 4,000 miles a year).

While there are some cyclists who are complete jerks there are motorists who are complete jerks too. Do you think that the motorists who go out of their way to piss off or endanger cyclists make it hard for all motorists? I don't. I assume that most motorists understand how to behave when cyclists are sharing the road and I don't hold them accountable for the jerks. Why should I be expected to take ANY responsibility for the jerk cyclists?

There was a recent column in an SF bay area paper about people who had been ticketed for what they considered frivolous things. One complaint came from a cyclist who admitted that she had blown through a stop sign and thought the $$$ ticket was unfair, that a warning would have been sufficient because there were no cars at the intersection.

The article included a box where a sheriff weighed in on each complaint and I completely agreed with him that the cyclist deserved the ticket but he then was quoted as saying something to the effect of if they want motorists to share the road with them, they need to obey the law... Wrong. It's not about what cyclists WANT. Sharing the road is the law, just like stopping at a stop sign. The sheriff displayed a prejudice against cyclists with that remark.

I think it's fair to say that jerk-cyclists make it hard (i.e., more dangerous) for the rest of us. Drivers are not in any significant danger from pissed-off cyclists.

The sheriff's comments are pretty typical, and I've run into police several times who were jaw-droppingly ignorant on the law themselves. Ignorance of traffic laws - in all quarters - makes for emotional encounters, and dangerous ones. That's why I support licensing cyclists just like drivers. Everyone who's going to use the road should be required to know the law for motorists and cyclists.

I think we need to take a hard look at the laws themselves. There's a lot of gray area (try to find out in your state whether it's legal to ride a bike on the sidewalk). Some laws are contradictory, some are downright silly, and some are worded poorly. For example, CA 21202 permits cyclists to occupy a full lane "wherever a right turn is authorized". The intent is clearly so cyclists can swing out to round off the corner as they turn, but there is one rider who feels this includes 100ft on either side of the intersection - effectively opening up every city street to full lane use by cyclists - whether they're going 35mph or 5mph. This same rider wrote the Wikipedia article on Bicycle Law on California, and is spreading this interpretation as if it were gospel.

Making cyclists come to a complete stop at a stop sign, when no one else is present, is burdensome. I think even most drivers would agree that is intuitively obvious. I'm hoping other states adopt Idaho's law, which treats stop signs as Yield signs for cyclists.

I come to a complete stop most of the time and at some intersections it's utterly stupid and slows down the car traffic behind me because I have to start from a dead stop. It's ridiculous but it's the law we're stuck with.I'm in CA too and bike about the same number of miles as you, all on roads and paved linear trails.

I also live near communities where the local authorities tried to force bicycles on the sidewalks because the roads were so dangerous (many lanes of 45 MPH + traffic and no shoulders) and the state told them they couldn't do that, but they could *suggest* that cyclists ride on the sidewalks. So the cities widened the sidewalks to accommodate both bikes and peds and put up signs saying that cyclists may use the sidewalk. I'd rather that they narrowed the sidewalk and carved out a bike lane but when I find myself on those roads I ride on the sidewalk because drivers don't expect bikes in the road.

I can't complain about most of my routes because it's a piece of cake biking here compared to anywhere else that I've lived but the laws on car-bicycle interactions really need a complete overall to reflect the reality of today's traffic loads.

...for riding on the sidewalks on Main Street. Not kidding.

So after we got the ticket, my best friend and I read what the other violations could be and one was "Riding more than two abreast," So, since riding MORE THAN two abreast was NOT legal, we assumed that riding two abreast WAS legal, Soooo we started riding two abreast everywhere we went, for a few weeks (or days, I can't remember).

Man, did we piss off a lot of drivers.

I hope you've outgrown that phase.

...and we only did it a few times.

Bicycle are to be on the ROAD, not a sidewalk. A sidewalk is for PEDESTRIANS only.

Now, in my home state of Pennsylvania, that was the law till the late 1990s. In the 1990s, Allegheny County (County seat is the City of Pittsburgh PA). decided to tear down the "Experimental" Track, that had been built in the 1960s for a proposed automated mass transit system called "Sky bus" (This was fought over from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s when someone decided to do an actual engineering study which determined the most cost effective solution to replacing the last Streetcar lines In Allegheny County was to update them to a Light Rail Vehicle System instead of replacing them with "Skybus&quot .

I have written about Skybus on DU before, if you want to read more about the project go to the following places. The worse is it would have been an idea solution between the Oakland and Downtown Pittsburgh transit spots, the third and Second most active transit spots in Pennsylvania, Downtown Philadelphia beats both out, but if someone proposed it for that route, it was shot down, buses was good enough, the problem was the remains of the old interurban Streetcar to Washington and Donora PA, the streetcar went through that transit corridor faster the you could in an automobile due to it having its own right of way, thus buses could NOT replace the Streetcars on that line without a substantial drop in service. Thus Skybus was an attempt to replace the Streetcar not Buses:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1130241
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?

And comments from someone beside me on the Skybus Debacle:
az=view_all&address=175x3388#3627
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Divernan/44

Anyway, when the Skybus track was torn down, the County decided to built a bike way over the same route. This was a problem for Skybus had been an ELEVATED transit system and that part had been torn down, what remain was the ground the old tracks use to over, but did NOT directly impact (i.e Skybus was a series of BRIDGES over terrain, and it was the TERRAIN the bike way was built on NOT the bridges).

At the same time the State passed a law that said that if a bike path was next to a road, bicyclist had to take the bike path.

This lead to a expensive problem. The bike path built along the old Skybus route went up and down hills that the Skybus leveled out due to it being elevated, but the bike route being on the actual GROUND, these ups and downs lead to severe turns on the path. The law saying all bikes had to use the bike path forced even high speed bicyclists onto this path, designed for at best 10 mpg travel (and in the turns 5 mph). Thus you had high speed bikes (30-50 mph) on a path where people were walking their children, dogs and pushing baby carriages. It was a narrow path, wide enough for two abreast.

You can see what I am leading up to, and it actually occurred, a high speed cyclists hit a woman pushing a baby carriage, and one of them died do to the accident. The county was then sued, but ran across some problems. First, while the County was viewed as part of the State for Sovereign immunity purposes (i.e. could not be sued) the state had passed a law that people could sue the state for up to $1 Million Dollars if they can show the "State" was at fault. Every highway designing the county contacted said you can NOT combine 30 mph high speed bikes with people pushing baby carriages. High Speed Bikes MUST be on Highways OR on bike paths design to handle high speed bikes (Rails to trails almost always meet this requirement for the Railway the Rails to trails are based on always did, the problem has been when bike Trails do NOT follow abandoned Railways or Highways, and that was the case with the old Skybus route).

The county could blame the Cyclists, but his defense was he was obeying the law, he HAD to use the bike trail, even if it was unsafe, for that was the STATE LAW.

From what I gather, rather then go to trial, the county just paid up. The State realized what it had done and repealed the requirement that cyclist MUSt use a bike path if one is available (i.e. Bicyclists can use a highway, even if next to a bike path). The purpose of this change was to remove the defense from a high speed cyclists that he HAD to use the bike path more then anything else.

Now, as part of that repeal, the state rewrote its law on bicyclists and sidewalks. For the first time in History, the state made it legal to use a cycle on a sidewalk BUT retained the ban in "business districts". What is a "business district"? That is up to a Jury to determine as a matter of fact (or a judge in a non-jury trial).

Just a comment that most states make it illegal for bicycle to operate on sidewalks and in at least one state, while it is now legal, it is illegal in any "business district".

...not having licensed our bicycles too, another Law we didn't know about at the time. And it was not like the Police couldn't have told me or my Dad that before, as this was my 3rd bike, the 2nd one I had we HAD gotten licensed, just because we thought it was a good Idea. Because they imprinted the license number into the bike frame, which was supposed to help if it was stolen. Not sure if that's true or not, but the point is, the Firemen who did the licensing (yeah, figure that one out) never told us it was a LAW that we had to license them, just a good idea.

I guess my larger point is, how are you supposed to follow bicycle "Laws" if they don't tell you what the Laws are until you get a ticket for breaking one? I mean, I might be able to find my local bicycle Laws if I look long enough on the internet, but I haven't found them yet, and finding them back in 1978, without the internet, was almost completely impossible, since they didn't issue Bike RIDER license, they just licensed the actual bike.

For example it is ILLEGAL in Pennsylvania for any bike violation be for more then $10. It is also illegal for a local municipality to pass regulations as to bicycles (and this was true in the 1950s and 1960s).

On the other hand, most municipalities would pass such laws more to help in the recovery of lost bicycles then anything else (i.e. register the bike, when it is found, returned to the owner if registered with the Municipalities). Since it is clear such a law violated State Law, the "Fine" for NOT registering the bike is nominal as oppose to being actual (The Police can issue such a fine, but if challenged any judge will throw it out). The money is used to set up the program, but if you willing do NOT join in the program, that is legal also. The reason is even through it is mandated by local law it is NOT legal under state law.

I will NOT go into an equal protection argument, (If the Local Government does this for bicycles, why not automobiles? for the possible excuse is the state already does it for automobiles, but then you have the argument that the State made a DECISION not to do so for Bicycles that the local government can NOT ignored).

These bicycle license laws were and are popular by local government but they have a problem, what about people who BIKE through your city? Do they have to license the bike in EVERY city they go through? Given that Automobiles do NOT have to?

These arguments were made in the 1950s and 1960s and almost never went above District Justice courts (who tended to throw them out for even the DJs new these laws were unjust). If they the laws were upheld at DJ level, the higher courts, when the laws came up to them strike them down (and in most cases the city just withdrew the ticket if the law was challenged, often acknowledging the law was illegal). Thus you ended up with laws on the books that no one would enforce, except for idiots who thought the laws were valid (and to scare teenagers). You have a whole series of such laws to scare teenagers, most unconstitutional or otherwise violate some state or federal law.

Thus one of the problems with these laws are that most people do not know they exists and no one wants to spread the word of there existence in case someone may actually file a lawsuit to strike them down. These are laws passed for problems the local government face, and this appears to be a good solution to that problem. The problem is these laws are NOT permitted by State Law or otherwise unenforceable. Most were pass by local city council as a solution to bicycles found on the streets, how do you return it to its owner? A license seems to be an answer, but how do you pay for the license? The answer is a license fees, but such a fee defeats the whole purpose of the law (i.e. Kids do NOT have money).

Surprisingly most such laws have the local Fire Department handle the license requirements. The reason for this was simple, the fire department had the free time to handle such licensing (They do NOT do patrols) and the space to hold such bicycles. Furthermore in major cities many Firemen work on such bikes during they down time, they have to be at the station anyway, you can only train so long, you can only maintain equipment so long, thus the bicycles gave them something to break up the routine. In areas served by Volunteer Fire Departments, the volunteers would do for the same reason, they were on call, they had to be at the station anyway, and it gave them something to do (and NOT to do, if things of higher priority came up, actual fires, other emergencies, training and maintaining equipment). I have heard of Police officers helping the firemen, again on their own time, but leaving the bikes at the fire Station for it is a good place for them (in many cases Police handle cases on a call in basis, i.e. stay at the station until someone calls in, then go out to see what the matter is). In such situation they are like firemen, waiting for something to happen. In such situations doing SOMETHING is better then doing NOTHING.

As I was saying, such laws were passed to address the problem of found bicycles and how to get them back to their owners. It appeared to be a good solution on the surface, but in practice a bad solution, but one that stays on the books for everyone works around the problem caused by the law (i.e. do NOT enforce the license requirement).

Thanks you for the sharing good information with us