Sharing the road
A bicycle lane runs along the right side of the street you are on. Which of these is a time you may drive in it?
- When you pull over to park in a spot where parking is allowed. Correct answer
- To get around a line of stopped traffic, if no bicyclists are in it.
- To pass a slow car ahead, as long as you leave it within 200 feet.
Why
A bicycle lane belongs to bicyclists, and driving in it is illegal except in three cases: parking where parking is permitted, entering or leaving the road, and turning within 200 feet of an intersection. Pulling into a legal parking space is the first of those. An empty bike lane is still not a way around stopped traffic, and the 200 feet in the third option is borrowed from the turning exception; it gives no permission to use the lane for passing. Whenever you do move into a bike lane, check your blind spots first for bicyclists.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition. The correct answer is When you pull over to park in a spot where parking is allowed.
The rule behind this one
Sharing the road in California goes through the whole topic, with the page of the California Driver's Handbook behind every rule.
More on sharing the road
- Two trucks of the same size are traveling at the same speed. One is fully loaded and the other is empty. Which statement is correct?
- You want to get past a large truck on the freeway. What does the handbook tell you to do?
- Raised buttons mark off a space on the road where people wait to board a streetcar. When may you drive through that space?
- You are waiting to turn left across light rail tracks. Which of these is correct?