I am so tired of vehicles blocking bike lanes when you already feel like you are a target for every driver.

What’s the point of bike lanes when cars and trucks are double parking? It’s so easy for a driver to pull over into the bike lane and stop there and act as if he or she is doing nothing wrong. There’s so much disrespect for us people on bikes. I used to bark at drivers but now I don’t even try.

Already, there are few bike lanes in the city of Oakland, and yet many times drivers take away those bike lanes by parking on them. Blocking bike lanes particularly on high speed streets forces bicyclists to swerve out into car lanes which is very dangerous, and I don’t even think drivers can even think of this hazard to people on bikes.

What’s worse is when you see a car that is a government vehicle! One time, I saw two police cars parking on bike lanes in San Francisco (no, their patrol lights weren’t even on). If city officials don’t set good examples, why would private citizens do the same?

But today for the first time I couldn’t believe my eyes. After passing a FedEx truck parked in the typical fashion blocking a bike lane, ahead of it was a UPS truck parked on the outside of the bike lane, not on it. At first I thought UPS was driving away, but that wasn’t the case. You can see its emergency yellow lights flashing. I was hoping to find out who he/she was and to say “Thank you!” but the driver wasn’t around. I would like to think he/she is a bicyclist himself/herself or is it the policy of UPS to not park on bike lanes? I will look for them next time.

Happy bicycling and hope to see you at Bike to Work Day, May 8th!