Cycles of all sorts

Vehicular cycling, or VC, is the practice of driving bicycles on roads in a manner which is visible, predictable, and in accordance with the rules of the road for operating a vehicle.

Under the international Vienna Convention on Road Traffic (1968), a bicycle (or "cycle", as referenced by the convention) is defined to be a vehicle and a cyclist is considered to be a driver. In a minority of jurisdictions (the states of AZ, CA, IA, IL, IN, MN, NY in the USA ) a bicycle is legally defined as a "device" rather than as a vehicle, but in all cases operators of bicycles share a basic set of rights and responsibilities with operators of motor vehicles.

Bicyclists, who do not pose an extraordinary danger to others, are not burdened with certain additional responsibilities placed on drivers of motor vehicles — for example, only motor vehicle operators are required to have a driver's license and, in some localities, carry liability insurance.

Sometimes vehicular cycling is referred to as integrated cycling (i.e. integrated with other vehicular traffic, as opposed to cycling on segregated cycling facilities ), integrated traffic cycling, cooperative cycling, or bicycle driving. For information about the relationship between vehicular cycling and bicycle lanes, please see the common misconceptions below.

The origins of riding in accordance to vehicular rules of the road go back to the 19th century when bicycles were invented and began sharing the roads with other vehicles, such as wagons and buggies.

John Forester's book, Effective Cycling, is generally considered the primary modern reference work about vehicular cycling. Without using the term vehicular cycling per se, John Franklin does an excellent job describing it in his book, Cyclecraft.

The vehicular cycling attitude

In the end, VC is as much about attitude as anything else. Without the VC attitude, no matter the skills, one cannot ride in traffic vehicularly. One really must believe, deep down, that as a cyclist he is a vehicle driver -- that he has the same rights as other vehicle drivers and that it is safe and not discourteous to assert those rights -- before he can act as a vehicle driver. Acting as a vehicle driver is a critical prerequisite to being treated as one (if one does not act as a vehicle driver, he certainly won't be treated as one).