Close pass on low visibility canal bridge – Suburu Calif. plate 5WJN551

Fresno, United States

28 Jul, 2024 - 11 months ago - on North Van Ness Boulevard
I was trying to turn left onto the canal while this driver crowds me out of the lane and passes too close and too fast.

You can see how the elevation of the bridge hides oncoming traffic from view here so it is not an appropriate place to pass. (California law says the driver must change lanes to pass, three feet was never enough.)

People walk and ride along the canal here all the time where motorized traffic should really slow down. But instead they speed up and get especially aggressive.

Why?

I think it’s the widening of the lane over the canal.

It draws out all sorts of speeding and aggressive behavior from motorized traffic beyond the usual dangerous close passes: yelling out their windows, stopping their vehicle on the bridge to yell, yelling and following me through the neighborhood, reversing their vehicle at me while yelling.

Just another case study for the accumulating data that wide lanes and wide shoulders cause people to drive faster, regardless of speed limits, even when that widening only occurs for maybe ~100 feet (~30 meters) drivers.

If we want people to intuitively drive the safe speed for areas where people walk and ride bicycles, there are inexpensive and effective ways to do that. It shouldn’t take a horrible preventable collision here before traffic calming measures are applied.