On the misery of sharing roads with cars
On the misery of sharing roads with cars
As part of an ongoing bike odyssey, I just did about 30km on a stretch of road with rather too many cars for comfort. That's to say, about a couple per minute in each direction. So hardly any, but still way too many for me.
The appearance of lights in the mirror, the rising din, the need to carefully keep a straight line to minimize risk, the rush of wind, the parting gift of NOx and PM10. As an aside, the pollution issue has always been my main objection to private cars, since it's so obviously unfair to eject your toxic effluent behind you. In the case of cigarettes, at least the smoker actually has to inhale the smoke before everyone else does!
Perhaps the most annoying of all: the motorists who want to help. They creep up behind you and hang around, waiting for a good moment to overtake even though there's not another car on the horizon. Often when this happens I'm actually riding on the hard shoulder, but no, it's not enough for them! "Get in the ditch so I have some more space, it's safer", they seem to say. When finally it's good enough, they (and often the tail of traffic they've accumulated) will step on the gas and leave me in a cloud of diesel fumes. Absolutely. Infuriating.
These are the kind of experiences that remind me why for many years I hardly got on a bike. For me, the main problem with cycling has never been the physical effort or the discomfort. It's the damn cars.
For you and a lot of other people. And that's part of the problem we have.
City planners will often say that "there's not enough demand to build cycling infrastructure on Death Road A, B, or C", but fail to realize that demand is low because A, B, and C are Death Roads!
Man, I did a 200km+ ride last weekend. According to my bike radar, I had 547 vehicles pass me, despite the majority of my ride taking place on our "waterfront trail" (which includes a mix of country and high-speed road.... sigh).
None of the roads I was on had posted speed limits beyond 80km/h, yet several vehicles were clocked at over 100km/h, while passing me.
And yes, the exhaust smoke over the ride was just too goddamn much. It sucks the joy out of a ride like that, even when motorists aren't trying to purposely punish-pass you!
But I'll keep cycling, because it will always put a smile on my face, even after experiences like that. If you can avoid the cars, do it. If not, let your city, regional representatives, and provincial or state reps know you want more separated cycling infrastructure!