Traffic Waves

On multi-lane roads, if I come up behind motorists, I rarely do anything other than stop behind the last car in line. Once the light turns green, they all roar ahead, leaving me all to myself on the road behind "the wave" of traffic. However, if I instead make a free right turn onto such a road, the wave may come roaring up behind.

I've been trying out an alternate route home, shown below. It has the advantage of not running along a narrow road with nice wide "paths" alongside the road, courtesy of the "Safe Routes to School" program. I also avoid what seems to be recurring traffic into and out of the school.

Yesterday, I made the free right to "Precinct Line Grand Prix," and before I got to my turn at Lavaca, had lots of cranky motorists behind and to my left side. It didn't feel right. They, in turn, didn't like a cyclist in their lane when there was a nice broad shoulder and a sidewalk. They did, however, lighten up after I worked my way left to turn onto Lavaca. In such cases, I like to repeat the maneuver to improve my ability to handle such situations; improving my overall safety margin. Today, I worked the timing a bit, and made my signal to move left earlier. Being in front of the wave is still not fun, but it felt crisp today. That left turn signal did wonders to calm the left lane traffic.

After a nice "thanks" wave, I moved left and then into the left turn lane. I haven't decided if I prefer this alternate route, but it would work well when there's a school event clogging things up, and it's a change in scenery for little time penalty.