I dont know a lot about the subject, but the previous post says "except those provisions which by their very nature can have no application."

Bike speed runs on human effort, id say a human being going with a bike at car speed is unreasonable. Also there are many very "natural" considerations on bike speeds: bad terrain, just going over a hill, cramps, and all sorts of bodily flaws that make speed limits on bikes unreasonable.

I would never use a bike on a highway though, but there is an undeniable benefit in supporting bikes in any big city, for health, transit, space, economic and environmental issues.

A bicycle is legally a "vehicle" but it is not a "motor vehicle." That is an actual distinction that is important when reading those laws.

The law speaks quite specifically to how bicycles are to behave where they cannot travel at the same speed as other vehicles. It does permit them to impede traffic where doing otherwise would be unsafe.

The law in most states specifically forbids bikes from impeding the flow flow of traffic. In some states they specifically even define what "impedes" mean (e.g. n number of cars behind the cyclist, the cyclist must pull to the side to let the cars pass, etc.).

> It does permit them to impede traffic where doing otherwise would be unsafe.

True. Just like farm equipment and horses.

Yes, per 21656 (which, incidentally, you didn't cite) a bicyclist blocking 5 or more cars must pull to the side and let them pass as soon as they are safely able to do so - just like anything else on the road (and damn it, I've encountered enough drivers who seem unaware of this).

That is neither a minimum speed nor a general injunction against impeding the flow of traffic.

That's a stupid response. You're the only one who has made claims about what holds in "every state". I don't know enough about the situation in other states to say anything - it's conceivable (if unlikely) that every other state than the one I happen to know about works the way you say; but that still makes it "not every state", and means it applies to a good 12% of Americans.

Edited to add: The comment above was changed from an assertion that the CA law didn't apply everywhere. Responding to the new comment:

Yes, there is a specific impediment law. One that generally permits impediment of traffic while placing some bounds on it. The bounds are more lenient than what a bicyclist should be doing - 21656 would totally permit biking (or driving) substantially under the speed limit for hours so long as you're only inconveniencing four cars, but that would make you a jerk. If someone's waiting on you, get over when you get the chance.

At least where I grew up, bikes were not supposed to ride on roads without sufficient shoulder for them to pull out of the way of vehicles. The flip side is that there's a big lobby that tries to ensure that most roads have such a shoulder. Lots of rural roads don't have them, but I've found that it's better for me as both a driver and a cyclist to have such shoulders in the case I need to pull off or out of the way with either kind of transport mode.

Certainly it all varies location to location. I'm unaware of a regulation like you suggest in CA, and don't believe there is one - where did you grow up?

It's certainly the case that it's better and safer to ride (or drive) where you have space to stop, and that that should be preferred when picking a route or building a road, but other concerns can sometimes wind up dominating.

Maryland. The law may have changed or I might be wrong about it. They used to not require helmets either. Growing up we used to get all kinds of community safety advice from the local schools and safe biking was a big push. I don't know that a similar "safe driving around bikers" ever happened though.

> That's a stupid response.

So what's stupid about the response? Either their is or there isn't an impediment law. It sounds like there is, just that "impediment" has been specifically defined in CA.

I feel like you were asserting there wasn't an impediment law, then citing me one. Maybe I'm just irritated at everybody else and it's bleeding over into this thread.

I would not have written that in response to the post-edit comment. I realized after editing that I should have put the new comment on top, but at that point it was too late to edit further - my apologies for the confusion. I still don't agree with the current comment - as you can see from my updated response (the bottom half) - but I wouldn't have called it stupid.

Reiterating what I said there, with a slightly different spin - it is not the case that, in general, "impeding the flow of traffic with your travel" is illegal. That is not really changed by the fact that there are some limits on just how extreme some aspects of that impediment can get; there is plenty of room to bicycle in a way that impedes some traffic and does not fall afowl of the law.

Most relevant to the context here, it is not a law that a police officer could use to ticket a cyclist for the mere act of riding slowly relative to cars, even if they are impeding the flow of several cars.

That's fine. I'm not in top form either. You didn't call me stupid, just what I said...and it may or may not actually be stupid.

We can agree I suppose to disagree on legal interpretations.