I'm talking about, though didn't make clear, a 30 mph road where one has already slowed up to overtake safely.
Unfortunately, giving much more room starts to become physically impossible without wider roads. It also tends to precludes parked cars, etc. on the other side of the road. Even when there is nothing at all coming in the other direction.
An adult cyclist is typically taller that they would be when stood upright. So it based on the room I mentioned above one needs to allow for over 6 feet of clearance. A good cyclist in most cases doesn't cycle in the gutter; two to three feet from the curb is more normal. That means that as a car driver if I am to pass that cyclist I need to be at a minimum ten feet away from the curb, probably closer to 11 or 12 feet. My car is 5'8" wide. Without thinking too much about it two feet either side seems towards the low end of normal driving between obstacles, which comes a little under ten feet.
Without measuring I'm not sure how that compares with a standard urban or sub-urban road, but twelve feet seems rather wider than a single lane on the roads I normally drive on. A bit of googling seems to indicate that 9 to 12 feet is typical, for the USA, which from my hazy memory has wider roads / lanes than the UK.
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Unfortunately, giving much more room starts to become physically impossible without wider roads. It also tends to precludes parked cars, etc. on the other side of the road. Even when there is nothing at all coming in the other direction.
An adult cyclist is typically taller that they would be when stood upright. So it based on the room I mentioned above one needs to allow for over 6 feet of clearance. A good cyclist in most cases doesn't cycle in the gutter; two to three feet from the curb is more normal. That means that as a car driver if I am to pass that cyclist I need to be at a minimum ten feet away from the curb, probably closer to 11 or 12 feet. My car is 5'8" wide. Without thinking too much about it two feet either side seems towards the low end of normal driving between obstacles, which comes a little under ten feet.
Without measuring I'm not sure how that compares with a standard urban or sub-urban road, but twelve feet seems rather wider than a single lane on the roads I normally drive on. A bit of googling seems to indicate that 9 to 12 feet is typical, for the USA, which from my hazy memory has wider roads / lanes than the UK.