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Almost all the near misses I see are from cars that drive around cars in front of them, which are stopped because they’re waiting to make an unprotected left.

I nearly got hit by a car because a car coming down Encinal stopped to let me cross on my bike. Because she should not have stopped (she should have taken her right of way) I stayed still, thinking she was waiting to turn left. But while she was stopped, a car driving too fast behind her also assumed she was waiting to turn and drove into parking/bike lane to go around her and nearly hit me.

If I could make something illegal tonight, it would be driving out of your lane to go around the stopped car in front of you. People don’t expect you to do it and the driver can’t see why the car on front of them is stopped. Places where this happens all the time with huge risks:

High and Santa Clara. People drive around cars waiting to make an unprotected left, while kids walk through crosswalks in and out of Lincoln Park.

Encinal and Benton Street. There’s a crosswalk there for the shops, preschool, and elementary school. Cars drive too fast, don’t always stop for the crosswalk, and worse: drive around cars stopped for kids in the crosswalk!

All the unprotected left lights on Park Street.

The crazy irony here is that we had a city council member or mayor (I can’t find the reference right now) who was killed by such an accident on Shore Line.

Make it illegal to drive around cars and ticket offenders.