Amazon delivery vans were parked in bike lanes all over Cambridge today.

Service vehicle never "have" to block the bike lane. They could simply block the general purpose lane instead.

In other words, they are making a deliberate choice to fuck cyclists' safety in order to prioritize convenience for car drivers.

Curious how it never occurs to them to block the driving lane, or you know, park around the corner.

In Germany, parents cannot be held liable if their child under 12 (or 14?) damages illegally parked cars with their bike.... Just a random fact of the day, nothing to do with your comment.

Call the cops on him. Every. Single. Time.

I tell him it takes only a second for a pedestrian to get hurt. He didn’t care the slightest bit.

while this clown is surely an asshole but let's not forget that his behavior and attitude is likely the very direct result of his economic and employment conditions.

who benefits from this most? the merchant then the buyer...

You'd think, but there are three levels of responsibility: the city council, the county council, and the local police. Calling any one of them to complain and demand enforcement results in them redirecting you to one of the others.

Basically, unless you're blocking car traffic, no one with power cares.

The police very, very rarely do anything about this kind of thing here. It’s not just Amazon; even everyday random people just stop in the middle of the street to pick people up or drop people off.

The worst offender is Uber Eats, which regularly completely blocks up roads near restaurants.

Plus the wardens have to watch the vehicle for 10 minutes before issuing a ticket. The driver would have completed the delivery and gone within that 10 minutes.

I suspect it's a selection effect. Amazon is a pain in the arse to work for. Decent drivers are in demand. This makes it easy for good drivers to jump ship to other companies. This leaves the inexperienced or just stupid drivers left to deal with the BS.

If you've not driven a van before, they are intimidating to maneuver, at first. It's takes time and skill to spin them on a dime, and slot them in, with awareness of how much space you are leaving. Novice drivers simply lack that skill.

Thank you for being the only one in this comment section that isn't a spoiled piece of shit punching down

Fuck that. This isn’t some poor customer service shit. This is being an inconsiderate asshole on public property. Yes they are treated poorly but that’s not an excuse for every behavior.

I have enough anger for both.

Seconding this. Some of these comments are an unpleasant reminder of why the stereotype of cyclists as upper class and entitled exists.

Some blame also lies on the local government for not adding bollards or other structures to separate the bike lane from traffic. Seeing all these issues and deciding someone with shit pay and zero job security is worth getting mad at just doesn’t make sense. Go take that energy somewhere it can do something.

By your logic the right answer is to be mad at every prime customer.

affluent people deserve their delivery, fuck u

These vans know every time the driver sneezes so Amazon can dock their pay for unsafe driving. These things have a million cameras inside and out.

So basically, wear a mask.

Well, given that parking in a bike lane carries a hefty fine, and that the cops don't seem to care, it's unlikely that they'd be around to notice or choose to do anything about scratched paint or a broken headlight.

"Oh nooo, my bike handle accidentally smashed into the van while I was avoiding the obstacle in the bike lane."

Just photograph the van from both angles and send the photos to the local traffic authorities.

My first response to this was expletive-laden, but I think I might get through to you if I reign it in, so I'm trying to be polite here. Just understand that I am seething with rage while I type this.

Hey there friend. You need to learn to park or stop driving. Seriously, you're endangering lives for your convenience. You get the whole damned road while everyone else is allocated the slightest fraction to safeguard ourselves from drunks, assholes, and morons pushing two tonnes of steel and glass at 60mph while they stare at their phones and you think it's ok to push kids on bikes into that channel of death because you can't be bothered to look for a legit parking spot? I get that your employer is pressuring you for better times, but you're literally breaking the law and that law exists for a reason.

Every one of the 4 of the drivers I saw that day were parking on the cycle lane when they had multiple more reasonable options available to them:

1. The driveways of those receiving the packages
2. Around the corner in a safer area where parking spaces are allocated by the city for just this situation
3. Blocking the road. I understand that this seems crazy to someone who spends so much time on the road, but blocking a car lane is an inconvenience. Blocking a cycle lane gets people killed.

What you're doing is lazy, selfish, and dangerous. Those cycle lanes are barely safe as they are without constantly being blocked by selfish people who think that they double as a parking space. You already have nearly the entirety of the city for your vehicle. Leave these alone.

Maybe you guys should unionise so you don't have such shit working conditions.

This is OK

This is ridiculous

A car lane is dedicated to the through traffic of cars. Similarly a bike lane is dedicated to the through traffic of bikes. If it is truly such a nothing burger to wait one minute, surely you would have no problem stopping on the car lane either and telling drivers to wait. And yet I have never seen a delivery driver attempt this - probably because it is considered socially acceptable for drivers to honk at shout at anyone blocking their way. Not so for cyclists, even though they are the more vulnerable road users.

Perhaps you could also stop at a bus stop and tell the bus driver to wait a minute. Or you could stop in a stranger's driveway while they are attempting to leave. Or hey, stop on a train track. Let me know how that goes for you. It's only a minute, right?

BTW I know the people in here are white because they want to play dress up cop