If a vehicle is traveling at 30mph and you’re traveling at 15mph, that means you’re closing with the car at 45mph.
Traveling with the flow of traffic…car traveling at 30mhp and you’re traveling at 15mph means the car is closing on you at 15mph.
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In my state bicycles are required to comply with the same “rules of the road” as motor vehicles although I see no signs of enforcement. Skateboards and push scooters are not addressed although they are banned from most business district sidewalks by municipal ordinance.
Excuse me (I realize this is a reply to Bing), if it’s okay. I’d like to weigh in here.
This is not news to me. To me this is obvious and something I’ve considered.
The cars here probably average closer to 60 mph (posted 45 for much of it, practically no law enforcement) and I usually travel between 16 mph & 20 mph.
However, being struck on my bicycle by a motor vehicle travelling 60 mph would be catastrophic, one way or the other. 
My method of riding makes me much safer (against traffic). I prefer not being hit at all over a situation of being hit with a reduced impact. 
I’m not sure being killed by a slower differential would be that helpful to me. 
However, not being hit at all would be quite beneficial! 
Riding with traffic would have caused my to run down by now. I will continue riding in the safest manner. 
CSA
If the differential is slower you have more time to react.
I don’t ride a bike much many more. I use to own a nice Trek road bike when I lived in upstate NY. Much better roads and more sane drivers. When I road I also had a rearview mirror. Many times I had to move out of the way quickly because of an erratic driver behind me. If he was heading toward me I might have not had enough time.
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Exactly! I have witnessed this many times and had 2 close calls. The first was while turning right from a parking lot onto a 45mph 2 lane road. The adult cyclist was going about 15mph but was quite close. He was in the bike lane which had the big white direction of travel arrows painted on it! The second was while turning right from a stop sign onto a different 45mph 2 lane road with 4 foot wide bike lanes on both sides. The adult (by age anyway) cyclist in full Lance Armstrong regalia came from my right ON THE SIDEWALK! at full speed and “flew” through the intersection in front of me! Both idiots survived because my Father taught me never to proceed an inch without looking in that direction. As any cyclist with an ounce of survival instinct would never consider doing this I have to assume these 2 were competing for a Darwin award.
I guess each rider has to access the location, potential risks/dangers, ability level, etcetera, and make the best decision for themselves.
As I indicated above, I sometimes “go with the flow” and ride in the direction of traffic, under certain conditions. An alert, capable, experienced rider can figure this out better than a pencil pushing bureaucrat. 
These guys don’t always make the smartest decisions, but I won’t go into that right now… 
CSA
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Yes, but the bottom line is that riding against traffic is breaking the law. If you got hit you might have legal difficulty.
I see lots of bikers, both here and abroad, and 99% are with traffic, not against. And when I was younger and biking, I always went with traffic.
Sorry Mike, most of the info in that link is a bunch of bunk. The only reasonable issue would be headlights in your eyes at night. Reading road signs? Like you need to know the speed limit or a curve ahead that you already traveled on? Drivers looking not looking at the side of the road? Makes absolutely no sense. Yeah its the law. That is my issue whether law enforcement has blinders on because anything with wheels must be a vehicle and all vehicles must travel in the same direction-except pedestrians or skate boards.
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How about a stop-sign or Yield…or deer crossing. I found it very useful and informative. If you choose to ignore it…that’s your choice. I don’t know how much bike riding you’ve done. I have a couple friends who are about to start their 4th trip riding from Ocean to Ocean. Both teachers, so they take the whole summer to do it. They would NEVER EVER ride against traffic. Ask people who do a lot of biking. The bikers we get around here all ride with traffic.
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Come on. Deer crossing signs on a bike? How silly. All stop signs I’ve ever seen are octagon shape. Pretty hard not to know its a stop sign even from the back. Try again.
You don’t ride a bike much do you?
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Is that a question or a statement? Nice deflection though. I’ve heard of motorcycles hitting deer but not bikes.
http://10.10.55.230:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=18446744072738835358
http://10.10.55.230:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=673451396
That was just an extremely small example. My Google search found THOUSANDS of examples.
I’m impressed. You have links stored for every conceivable topic. I liked the rat though climbing on the sleeping passenger in the NYC subway. Now that’s scary.
Are you that technically challenged. Have you heard about this thing called Google. How about Microsoft’s Bing…Now that’s irony.
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Yeah I was quite upset when they stole my name for commercial purposes. I’ve thought about suing but then I might lose.
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When I was riding my 
this morning 3 rats with hooves (deer) ran out in front of me! 
Those damn things have no regard for drivers and riders. There were no “Deer Crossing” signs! None!
CSA
Those scofflaw deer never pay attention to the signs. Dirty jaywalkers.
@bing, you didn’t copyright your screen name, but Microsoft did. Now they are going to sue you. Something like that happened here about ten years ago. An Asian woman named Sony (first name) caller here food stall at a local mall Sony’s, and Sony Corporation of America sued her. They forced her to change the name because they didn’t want anyone to confuse her food stall with any part of their corporation. You’re next, @bing. Microsoft doesn’t want anyone confusing your posts as representative of their corporate ethos.
Deer are responsible for more deaths than any other non-human animal. Some have speculated that if we allowed wolves and lions back, they’d save more human lives than they’d cost through deer predation.
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Charles-Witham/246347048 died when he struck a deer while biking to work at JPL on a mountain path.
Thing is I had my name before Microsoft and I can prove it copyright or no. I don’t intend to open a food stand though so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Yeah those dang deer. I just about ran into Bambi and Mama with my lawn mower in the back yard. Just stood and looked at me like why was I there?