It happened in a way that, if it were an extremely rare occurrence, I could easily put down to sheer ignorance, rather than aggressiveness. But it was just so common, and these are supposed to be professional drivers, so ignorance is a hard excuse to swallow. I’d be riding along and a bus would start overtaking me, and then mid-overtake would just suddenly pull into the kerb, forcing me to jump off my bike and onto the footpath to avoid getting crushed. I was only commuting along that particular road for about 2 years, but it probably happened 5 or 6 times on a single 400 m stretch of road.
edit: I did live inner suburbs at the time, but this was actually happening in Adelaide Street, an inner-city CBD street.
Hmm, i had a road like that when i rode to work, Orrong rd, if you want to look it up. It was ‘dual carriageway??’ (I think, thats what you call it) and busy as fuck.
Riding along that road sounds similar to how you describe. I don’t know if anyone was really gunning for me, the roads construction feels constricting to the driver if you’re trying to pass a rider, so i’s happy to give the benefit of the doubt when a driver got a bit close.
After about a month or so I realised the council had me sorted, they’d constructed a safe road specifically for riders running parallel to Orrong, of course, until you reached the industrial area, no one ever gives a shit about riders or public transport in industrial areas, that shits me.
It’s a single lane in each direction, with that lane being wide enough that when buses are pulled over for passengers, another vehicle behind them usually has room to overtake. Or, a cyclist riding near the left kerb can very easily be overtaken with enough room. What doesn’t work, here or anywhere else, is buses starting to overtake cyclists, getting halfway past them, and then pulling in to a stop to drop off passengers.
It happened in a way that, if it were an extremely rare occurrence, I could easily put down to sheer ignorance, rather than aggressiveness. But it was just so common, and these are supposed to be professional drivers, so ignorance is a hard excuse to swallow. I’d be riding along and a bus would start overtaking me, and then mid-overtake would just suddenly pull into the kerb, forcing me to jump off my bike and onto the footpath to avoid getting crushed. I was only commuting along that particular road for about 2 years, but it probably happened 5 or 6 times on a single 400 m stretch of road.
edit: I did live inner suburbs at the time, but this was actually happening in Adelaide Street, an inner-city CBD street.
Hmm, i had a road like that when i rode to work, Orrong rd, if you want to look it up. It was ‘dual carriageway??’ (I think, thats what you call it) and busy as fuck.
Riding along that road sounds similar to how you describe. I don’t know if anyone was really gunning for me, the roads construction feels constricting to the driver if you’re trying to pass a rider, so i’s happy to give the benefit of the doubt when a driver got a bit close.
After about a month or so I realised the council had me sorted, they’d constructed a safe road specifically for riders running parallel to Orrong, of course, until you reached the industrial area, no one ever gives a shit about riders or public transport in industrial areas, that shits me.
Oh, Adelaide Street is nothing like that:
It’s a single lane in each direction, with that lane being wide enough that when buses are pulled over for passengers, another vehicle behind them usually has room to overtake. Or, a cyclist riding near the left kerb can very easily be overtaken with enough room. What doesn’t work, here or anywhere else, is buses starting to overtake cyclists, getting halfway past them, and then pulling in to a stop to drop off passengers.