Invented English? Nah, mate, nothing homegrown there. We imported it - a strong base if Anglo-Saxon and a dollop of Norman French making it a bit more posh, with shoots of Brythonic, Latin and Old Norse poking through the cracks. All that before we went nicking words from all over the world that took our fancy.
By this pont we barely know how it all works - we're like monkeys driving a monster truck frankensteined together from an ice cream van, a golf cart, a tank and a Postman Pat toy; just mashing the controls hoping to make it go in vaguely the right direction.
Cyclists are entitled to basically the same amount of space as you would give a car. If it's not safe to pass a cyclist unless they are riding single file, it's not safe to pass the cyclist.
In the UK, you're not meant to get within 6ft of a bike when you're overtaking it (although it's pretty common for drivers to get muddled and think that rule's talking about inches). That means it's not safe to overtake if there are oncoming vehicles in the opposite lane or solid white lines in the middle of the road. Another bike a metre or so from the first one doesn't change that if you've got to cross into the opposite lane anyway, and it's better if they're two abrest as you don't need to be in the opposite lane for as long.
There are plenty of idiot cyclists who endanger themselves, but there are also plenty of drivers who accuse people of being idiot cyclists when they're following The Highway Code to the letter.
Just the other day, a driver passed a group of cyclists while on a quiet road. He honked the entire way past while driving down the wrong side of the road and failed to notice the oncoming cars while the bikes and other cars were trying to get his attention. Luckily, the other cars slammed on their brakes and horns and nobody was hurt or killed.
...The road was about four blocks long and isn't even a major road because it runs into a city park. He didn't make it past the cyclists because the road was so short, and there were other cars coming the other way.
When I'm cycling on dual carriageways, it's interesting to realise that some drivers overtake me by moving to straddle the line between lanes ('fine'), some drivers move into the other lane ('great'), and some don't move at all, demonstrating that even when there's a whole other lane to use, they're happy to skim past me. And by 'interesting', I mean 'often terrifying'.
Same problem in Canada. On some narrower roads the cyclist has to take up more road to force the drivers to wait until there is no incoming traffic in the other lane before overtaking. Otherwise some of them will try to squeeze through with zero consideration for the cyclist's safety.
I've learned that in motorcycle riding lessons. You have to constantly defend your safety bubble. If you let drivers see a gap that looks big enough they will try to squeeze through it and will push you off the road.
I live near a Tour de France route and single file is the way to do it, because we leave at least 1.5m by law when overtaking cyclists
You can tell the fucking insufferable English CUNTS because they cycle two-abreast "bEcAUSe iT's SAfeR"
Mate, people will sit behind you until it's safe to overtake and leave you that 1.5m, cycling side by side makes overtaking impossible on mountain roads and makes you an UTTER CUNT
I explained it quite simply, do you need me to draw a picture with crayons?
We respect the cyclists by not overtaking until we can leave 1.5m of space. We expect the cyclists to respect us the same way by giving us the opportunity to leave 1.5m of space and not cycling side by side