This is one of the roads that I ride along on my way home from work. The rather unattractive car in the picture was parked in the bike lane. That's the dark green strip you can see that is supposed to provide a safe haven for those of us who get around by pedal power. As you can see from the conveniently positioned cyclist in the photo, when there is a car in the bike lane, bikes are forced into the car lane. When you are encased in lycra and polystyrene and car drivers are encased in 1300kg* of glass and metal, this makes you feel a little vulnerable. Now, I do understand that occasionally cars need to double park to quickly drop someone off or pick someone up during a busy time of day, and they may inadvertently encroach on the bike lane in so doing. However, in this case, there was ample parking space in the actual car parking space!!! I mean, I'm not the world's most accomplished parallel parker, but at least I generally manage to get more than 90% of the car into the parking space and not hanging out into the road. Tch.
*1300kg is the actual weight of the car in the picture. I know that because I looked it up on the internet, not because I ride with a set of car scales in my panniers.
No comments:
Post a Comment