A Cycling Cliché
Most people know the “angry cyclist” stereotype. I’m starting to wonder if it’s more than that. My family and I suffered a road rage incident today. My wife was taking me to a bus stop so I could get to the hospital for a day procedure - and she could get to work on time. My daughter works at the hospital so I was going with her. We were driving through the morning crush - peak hour traffic in the busy café district of Leederville. As we were nearing the relevant bus stop, my wife stopped at a yield sign so my daughter and I could climb out (there was literally no where else to stop, never mind park). We had passed a cyclist in a parallel bicycle lane about a minute before. Obviously he’d caught up as I fumbled the childproof lock. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” He shouted as I got out. It seemed he’d lost momentum coming in to the shared part of the road - indeed, horror of horrors, he’d actually had to stop (as if car drivers like me don’t regularly accept the necessity of slowing ...