Cyclist's heated exchange with driver over 'deliberate' roadside act: 'Serial offender'

The age-old divide between cars and bikes has been showcased once again in an angry exchange of words between a driver parked on a bike path and a cyclist trying to get around it.

Aussie bike safety company Cycliq shared the footage on Friday showing a cyclist riding along a green bike path believed to be in South Australia until he sees a black Jeep stopped on the path ahead. The male rider uses his bell to signal for the driver to move, but the man behind the wheel yells for him to "go around".

"You’re actually illegally parked in the middle of the bike path, I’m supposed to go straight through there," the cyclist says in response as he stops next to the vehicle — and quickly things became heated from there.

According to the rider, who had shared their incident originally in UpRide, an app that collects safety information about bike routes across the country and the world, this was not the first time this Jeep had parked in the bike lane.

"The driver of the Jeep is a serial offender. He works/owns a nearby motor works and regularly parks across the bike path," he said. "Last time I confronted him, in his business premises, he claimed the car was a customer's car and they would move it soon."

The cyclist also blamed the "poorly designed" bike path which takes up car spaces. "[It's a] poorly designed bike path that reduces car parking, provides opportunities for motorists to inadvertently and deliberately park across the bike lane, and leads to motorists exiting the side street to park across the bike lane while waiting to exit," he said.

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Response scathing from both sides of the debate

As always when it comes to cars versus bikes, there has been a quick and obvious divide among those who have seen the footage.

"So you don’t want to share the bike lane, but you expect the car lane to be shared," one person from the car side said. "Go around like we have to with our cars," another said.

Bike supporters disagreed, saying cars "hog" the roads. "Cars always hog the road like they own it," one said. "The green paint means it's allocated to bikes. Not parked cars," another added.

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