bike lane you say?

I got a slight car dooring heading down Brunswick St on the way home yesterday, just near the corner of Victoria Pde & Brunswick.

Not hard enough to knock me off, but enough to give my elbow a good whack and make me wobble a bit.

I yelled out at the dude (getting out of a Range Rover and wearing bone coloured slacks and chambray shirt – middle aged rich boomer uniform) and he yelled back at me “yellow line idiot!”

Now I had had a shitty day at work and was in a foul mood, so I skidded up, stopped and asked him what he said and called him a few nasty names, telling him to look before he opened the door into the bike lane.

The retard started yelling about “yellow line, you were inside the yellow line” at me again.

Took me a while to work out what he was on about and then it dawned on me – the dozey fuck was insisting that the yellow line next to the tram tracks (the bit that if you cross when a tram is there means you get squished) was a line telling bikes not to cross over and that is the bike lane was “not for bikes, it’s inside the yellow line”

I asked him what he massive picture of the bike on the ground meant and he kept going about “bikes aren’t to be inside the line, this is for car parking – you have to stay outside the yellow line”

Some lady walking passed started telling the guy off for car dooring me and that it was a bike lane and he started up again about “bike exclusion zone, that inside the yellow line is for car parking”.

After both of us blasting the idiot, we both gave up and went away with him yelling at me “look where you are going next time”

Quite possibly the worst understanding of the concept of bike lanes I have ever seen.

Yeah he sounds like a complete doofus.

But remember that’s what some people do when they’re in shock or stressed- they’ll argue illogically, even if they’re completely and obviously in the wrong.

You should have punched his teeth.

Sometimes it’s just too hard to get through to people.

Just take down the number and key it at a later date :evil:

great. now i have to deal with the fact that “that” guy exists.

and possibly has children…

I very nearly got car-doored this morning. And it would have been fucking brutal.

Sprinting down Clarendon St next to Fitzroy Gardens to make the green across Wellington Parade, hit maybe 55-60ks as I was about to cross the intersection and a taxi sitting right before the intersection at the Hilton swung his door open literally a split-second after I went past him.

i go down there every moring, so nuts with the taxis and trucks outside the hotel, douches in jaguars pulling out without looking and cars suddenly hitting the brakes or turing hard left to avoid the detour near that building site.

fucking lucky.

also,

some of the shit on your blog makes me laugh so much.

yes, but

Range Rover and wearing bone coloured slacks and chambray shirt
on Brunswick St equals massive steaming piece of shit.

it was up the top near the university, i am assuming he was heading there or to the hospital on the corner.

3 years ago had a similar scenario outside the rivoli cinemas Hawthron, after blasting through the junction got taken out by a council parking inspector who kicked his door fully open about 1 metre in front (because he was too fat ) of me, I bent the door completely backwards after going over the top. apparently it was a good sight for the people coming out of the cinema, the other funny sight would have been when i was holding him by the throat and bleeding ALL over him, got a good payout from Boorandara though :smiley:

Yeah it’s bad news down that street. I’ve had more than my fair-share of close-calls with the cabs that congregate there, as well as people who just pull across the bike lane to snatch parks down the hill. I usually ride in the middle of the road down there now.

And Johnson, I’m glad to entertain you.

for people like that you should take down their number plate and report them for throwing cigarette buts out the window… 400 dollar fine!

I’ll remember that one!

For the drivers here, is there an added blind spot to the diagonal rear of the car where you can’t judge the space of objects behind you? I get cars overtaking and swerving for parks in front of me all the time forcing me to slow down. I guess they’re just douches because it wouldn’t happen to someone driving a car. I’ll keep keys ready for when it happens.

also let 2 tyres down after riding around the block… not one but two, no one carries two spares.

Lots of drivers slow down reeeeeally slowly and are too daft to realise how much you catch up to them in that time. I think they’ve also only ever hit 15 km/h on their bicycles and they just can’t compute that it’s possible to impede you.

Thanks for taking the time to pull up and give him a serve. The confrontation might, just might, make him look next time, despite his pleading stupidity defense. If you just came back and keyed it, they might never make the connection but I guess at least that might make you feel better.

Off topic, but what colour is chambray?!?