Schonhose

I was riding my bike to work today, and out here in the Netherlands we have special paved roads for bikers. So I was happily riding along, picked up quite a nice cruising speed and was listening to Jeff Foxworthy on my mp3-player.

Most cyclingtracks in the Netherlands have the right of way. Which makes my life a lot easier since I can keep my cruising speed most of the time. Then I came up to this intersection and this car pulled up from the right of me.

The female driver obviously wanted to turn right at the parallel road for cars, so she decided to stop on the cycling track. Now, she could have stopped a few feet earlier since the cycling road is like 3 feet away from the road the cars drive on, but NO… she had to stop the car on the track.

As soon as I saw this, I had to hit the brakes trying to avoid a collision. I made it in time, stopped a few inches away from her door. I set my foot down, look at her and she waves at me. At that point I was like: wtf is this wave? You’re obviously sorry, you have that guilty look on your face mixed with some fear, but what is up with the wave? I guess it was an “I’m sorry for being so stupid” wave or something, she got me stumped on that.

Then, a few miles further down the road there is this roundabout. Again, we, as cyclist, have the right of way. I nearly got hit by this car, loud pumping trance music, shabby looking guy with a baseball hat who was tuning his radio or something.

I swear, even cycling in the Motherland of all cycling isn’t safe anymore…. :mad: