Ask An Attorney: "What is a sharrow?"

Sharrow photo by Flickr user nickfalbo

A "sharrow" is a share the road arrow that alerts other traffic that cyclists are allowed to occupy the entire lane of traffic.

You normally find sharrows on narrow traffic lanes where there is no bike lane present and there is a small shoulder on the right side of the lane. Sharrows encourage cyclists to ride in the center of the lane to avoid riding too close to the “door zone” and discourage unsafe passing within the same lane by motorists. An example of this would be on Pacific Coast Highway riding southbound through Leucadia or riding northbound on Market Street in San Francisco (like the photo seen above).