I won't comment on the pick up / drop off situation, but another important scenario is right turns. In California, drivers are legally required to merge into the bike lane when making a right turn. This is for the safety of the bicyclists, to avoid the dreaded "right hook" collision.

Dylan Taylor, a beloved Menlo-Atherton High School football coach, was killed last year in one of these collisions:

https://www.almanacnews.com/atherton/2025/05/08/m-a-athletic...

(Scroll down to the comment by "T R" which describes better than the article itself what likely happened.)

Unfortunately, I've almost never seen a driver follow this law. Everyone studiously avoids the bike lane and then cuts across it.

The bike lane marker changes from a solid white stripe to a dashed line as you approach an intersection. This is supposed to be a hint to merge into the bike lane. It isn't working.

I post a reminder on Nextdoor once or twice a year about this. I'm taking the opportunity to also post it here for my California neighbors.

It would be interesting to see if the Waymo Driver follows this law. My bet is that it does.

The San Francisco Bike Coalition has an excellent page on this topic:

https://sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-turns/

Bike lane or not, the majority of drivers make illegal right turns.

If you're in SF, watch on Gough or Franklin that people don't pull in the far right or left lane to make a turn, they illegally turn from one lane over. Literally 9 of 10 cars do this.

It happens all over. My guess is they don't perceive it as a right lane because 100-200 feet back there were cars parked in it but it's clearly marked as a lane and the law makes it clearly illegal to make right turn if you're not in the right lane.

There's lots of other less illegal? but dangerous things 95% of drivers do. 2 left turn lanes, curved line drawn through intersection to guide the lanes. 95% of cars in the 2nd left turn lane cut the guide line effectively cutting off the people in the #1 left turn lane.

In the nearest fairly large city, there's a (sometimes separated) bike lane, a bus lane, traffic lane, and turning lane which all intersect to various degrees. It's all clear as mud especially after dark when both bicycles and pedestrians are frequently darting into traffic from behind cars without lights. I'm just surprised there aren't more accidents.

As soon as I saw that headline I knew it had to be on Middlefield... lo and behold. I've been aalmost hit there twice and actually hit there once. once with a car taking a left. another with a car taking a right

People will do this to cut past people stopped at the light, but yes: at least in non-SF Bay Area, they will right hook unless otherwise compelled to put their car over the line. Some areas have started making those lanes dashed-striped but adherence is pitiful and enforcement is zero.

I don’t live there, but for what it’s worth, this seems to be followed fairly consistently in the San Diego area whenever I’ve visited.

huh i didn't know about a specific bike lane law. but i do know the law that right turns must be taken as "close as practicable" to the right side of the roadway. plus there's the hint of the dashed line. Sneaking into the extra space to the right isn't a shortcut -- it's required by law, ie even without a bike lane.

in california, which is where the incident in TFA occurred.

And when you do that, (most) cyclists behind you get angry. (Most) cyclists are rude and act like they own the road.