Cyclists do it too...

I don't know what it was, but today seemed like a day where I kept running into traffic problems, not with cars, but with other cyclists. At one point I was heading along the bike lane when a man on a commuter cut lazily across from the opposite bike lane, pedalling away, and drove slantwise across the oncoming lane and into the bike lane, where he wound up heading straight for me, the wrong way up the bike lane. I dodged, and said something like, "Watch it!" as he arced left onto a side street and continued on his way. I guess merging with traffic and slowing down to make the turn at a sharper angle would have cramped his style.

Then a few blocks away, I was waiting in the left turn lane at a pretty big intersection when a man rolled up beside me on his bike, and glanced at me with a vague sort of expression. I was too busy wondering why he'd pulled up on my outside to be particularly social, and when the light did turn green, he did just what I'd been worried he was going to do: he headed out into the left turn beside me, which meant that when we finished the left turn, one of us would have to hit the brakes or we'd collide as we both headed for the outer edge of the road. I shouted, "What are you doing!?" but he didn't seem concerned. I pedaled faster just to get away from him in case he did anything else wonky.

I know, I know. In those bike-flotillas you see so often in videos of Copenhagen that make it look like cyclist heaven, I'd have to put up with more jostling than this. But I also wouldn't be putting up with the added factor of adjacent motor traffic. And I figure if we're all vehicles together, we should all try and act like it.