Tweet
Backstory: In most of Australia, cyclists are allowed to take over one lane of a road that has two or more, or on a single lane road, ride in single file.
Every Sunday morning along the Beach Rd not too far from me in Melbourne, packs of up to 50 cyclists take over one lane of the two lane rd.
Which isn't much of a problem in itself, just their attitude and general disdain for the road laws.
For example often they'll take over the second lane too, holding up traffic, and abuse any driver who attempts to remind them to stick to the one lane.
Red lights also seem not to apply to them, as they're only for pedestrian crossings, so they feel they have the right of way.
Sounds dangerous right?
Indeed. In fact several years ago, an older gentlemen walking his dog lost his life because of it. The cyclist who actually hit him copped a fairly heavy penalty (can't quite remember what it was) but it was really the culture of he cyclists that caused this.
The reason none of them stopped at the lights is because the assholes at the BACK of the pack didn't want to ruin their rhythm and called out, "Rolling" - telling everyone in front of them that they had pretty much no choice to blow through the red light or cause an accident (yeah, seriously). Of course, from memory, no one actually admitted to being one of these guys, so the unfortunate guy who actually hit the pedestrian went down alone I believe.
Also the number of times I've driven down my single lane street to be stuck behind two or three cyclists riding abreast, and copping abuse when I hit the horn is rage inducing.
Anyone else have stories on entitled cyclists?
Every Sunday morning along the Beach Rd not too far from me in Melbourne, packs of up to 50 cyclists take over one lane of the two lane rd.
Which isn't much of a problem in itself, just their attitude and general disdain for the road laws.
For example often they'll take over the second lane too, holding up traffic, and abuse any driver who attempts to remind them to stick to the one lane.
Red lights also seem not to apply to them, as they're only for pedestrian crossings, so they feel they have the right of way.
Sounds dangerous right?
Indeed. In fact several years ago, an older gentlemen walking his dog lost his life because of it. The cyclist who actually hit him copped a fairly heavy penalty (can't quite remember what it was) but it was really the culture of he cyclists that caused this.
The reason none of them stopped at the lights is because the assholes at the BACK of the pack didn't want to ruin their rhythm and called out, "Rolling" - telling everyone in front of them that they had pretty much no choice to blow through the red light or cause an accident (yeah, seriously). Of course, from memory, no one actually admitted to being one of these guys, so the unfortunate guy who actually hit the pedestrian went down alone I believe.
Also the number of times I've driven down my single lane street to be stuck behind two or three cyclists riding abreast, and copping abuse when I hit the horn is rage inducing.
Anyone else have stories on entitled cyclists?
Comment