‘A bit of a nightmare’
Cyclist fed up with driver behaviour
Rare is the day that cyclist Kate Jensen arrives at work without getting an earful of abuse or experiencing a near miss.
More often than not, someone has overtaken her on an inner-city Nelson street as she rides at the speed limit, given her flak at a red light, honked, tailgated, revved their engine behind her, or simply passed far too close.
‘‘Usually I’ve got a bit of adrenaline going when I get to work, I’m a little bit shaky. That’s normal. If I don’t have that happen I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I’m actually at work and nothing happened on the way’.’’
Jensen, who has been cycling for 48 years and uses a long tail cargo bike to cycle 3.4km to work, would like motorists to be better educated about sharing the road.
Down Collingwood St, for example, she will ‘‘take the lane’’, moving further into the centre of the road to maintain a safe distance from parked vehicles.
She doesn’t shy from doing this on streets with sharrow markings, which are used in places where people on bikes are likely to need to move further into the middle of the street – such as streets lined with parked cars, putting cyclists at risk of being doored.
Nelson cyclist Tom Clendon, 86, died in Nelson Hospital after a crash with an opened car door in April.
The family called for more education for drivers and improved cycleways around Nelson to help reduce the risk to cyclists.
‘‘I think there’s a lot of driver and cyclist ignorance about what a sharrow means,’’ Jensen said. ‘‘It’s a road where cycles and cars are kind of equal partners because it’s not big enough for cyclists to go to the side of the road.’’
Ideally, Jensen would like to see more cyclists become aware of their rights and responsibilities through Waka Kotahi’s Code for Cyclists, much like drivers have to undertake education before getting behind the wheel.
She would also like to see an end to cyclists ‘‘slinking around’’ parked cars and then hugging the kerb, which takes them out of the sight lines of drivers.
‘‘Nelson’s cycleways themselves are wonderful,’’ she says, ‘‘but the middle of town is a bit of a nightmare.’’
She is regularly confronted by drivers yelling things like ‘‘You’re supposed to be at the side of the road’’, despite the Code for Cyclists advising cyclists to move closer to the centre when passing parked cars, riding on narrow roads, turning right on turning lanes, and at roundabouts.
Having cyclists on the road is actually good for motorists, she argues, as it puts less pressure on the health system, there’s less congestion, and it’s helping to prevent climate change.
Jensen does pull over to let faster traffic pass, much like a slow tractor would, but people overtake her on streets with 30kph speed limits, which she adheres to.
‘‘If you can’t wait one or two seconds, what is wrong with your life that you’re that impatient?
What are you trying to prove in your car?’’
Cyclists, she said, were treated like ‘‘fourth class citizens’’ on the road.
‘‘I’ve heard people say if you can’t cycle in Nelson where can you cycle? – Well I think the answer is you can’t really cycle safely anywhere in New Zealand.’’
Bicycle Nelson Bays convener Bevan Woodward said this was a situation where the council needed to step in and get on with its speed management programme.
‘‘We need to reduce a lot of our urban speed limits to 30 kilometres per hour, and that automatically makes streets a whole lot safer for walking and cycling.’’