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I’m tired of biking in this city. The heckling from dumb drivers is annoying, but can be ignored. But the idiot drivers who don’t understand that bikes have a right to the road are seriously wearing me down and making me question whether I want to bike any more.
Riding down Gottingen, you decide to honk the horn of your stupid pickup truck at me because I’m in front of you and you want to pass. Guess what? I don’t have to move to the side. I had a left turn coming up so I needed to be in the middle of the lane. I have a right to the road. Even if I wasn’t turning left, Gottingen is a narrow street with cars parked on both sides. Sometimes bikers just have no way to keep to the right on our roads. I know it adds a whole 3.4 seconds to your commute in your giant stupid truck, but you’ll be fine, I promise.
But you keep riding my ass, so I move to the right as best
I can and try to wave you past, but you just follow right behind me anyway. Then when I finally make my left turn you slow down and STOP in the middle of the road to tell me to “have a nice day.”
Hope you have a nice day too, fuckface. —Frustrated biker of 8 years
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2015.
Get a car ya bum.
Cycling, just like driving, is a privilege and you very well may have a ‘right of way’ but you do not have a “right” to do anything on a street that is to be shared.
It’s very sad that people can’t share the roads, especially those with their Big Truck/SUV penile extensions. Too much testosterone humming there for it to be safe.
I used to bike from Dartmouth to Halifax almost every day to work. I gave that up when I saw a cyclist pinned under a van on the corner of Queen and SGR.
Is cycling seriously this bad in Halifax? If so, get a GoPro.
And OB, did you signal your upcoming left turn? Also, plan your route ahead of time. It may take a couple minutes longer but you can avoid the chokepoints for the most part I’d imagine. And personally I’d do an extra couple km for a more a peaceful ride.
It isn’t really that bad. Haters gonna hate.
I have been thinking about getting a bike and then I hear stories like this and I start thinking about wanting to live to retirement…