New law forces Californian cyclists to pull over when traffic backs up

I don't edit my posts post hoc to look less stupid than I am, but it's only neighbourly of me to point out that the link to this story in the "recent comments" section of the homepage still has the original title without the word "Californian" insterted into it.

Not sure what the penalty is for cyclists as the article only states the penalty for motorists? 

This isn't a new law - it's already in place in California (and similar in Washington state) for other road users - it's just cyclists have been included in the current highway regulations.  Their roads are designed so the slow moving traffic to move over, while the vehicle being passed can maintain close to speed limit speeds while the traffic passes.  When you have  queue of 5 (or 3 in Washington) behind you, you pull over into the next passing place and let those behind pass.  As a tourist (in a car) on unknown roads, with a string of logging trucks behind me, I was grateful for the passing places.  If it's well designed, it works.  If it's already in the highway code here, the implementation has been piss-poor in comparison!

As the article says, this rule is already in force in the UK, but most motorists don't think it applies to them. I'm frequently held up by cars on urban roads and none have ever pulled over to let me pass.

How about getting rid of on-street parking? These cars occupy road space and contribute far more to congestion than slow moving vehicles, which are at least moving.

Five or more cars are behind them over what distance? Twenty metres; a half mile; *ever*? To be honest, if I'm looking over my shoulder I'm looking for how close the next vehicle is, not counting how many I can see.

On any given bank holiday Monday, heading to a National Park... a queue is most like to be found behind a) a cyclist or b) a caravan (pulled by a Volvo-driving-Daily-Mail-reading-cycle-Hater)?

Sonoma bitch!

When I lived in the North of Scotland a few years ago there was a prosecution of a driver for failing to pull over on a single track road ( most of the roads away from the coast are single track with passing places) but I suspect most drivers aren't  aware of their responsibilities.  I was once following a group of cyclists in a car and they helped me past by signalling down the group that the road was clear past  the brow of hill. If everybody was more aware of what was going on around them and better trained you wouldn't need these laws

A queue of cars behind you is often the fault of a clueless driver who hasn't the balls to overtake you safely.

Wouldn't work in London where you're typically going as fast or faster than traffic and there are long queues of traffic to start with- pulling over wouldn't make any sense at all (for the cyclist).

At least 3 foot is reasonable for slower speeds, even 2 foot is ok at 15mph for smaller vehicles.

On the odd occasion I see farm vehicles pull over to let traffic pass, usually when 100+ cars and trucks have built up!

Unworkable. When was the last time you saw an HGV pull up, or get pulled up,  after collecting a line of traffic behind it?