Bike Lane....a rent free business location?

[eyecatcher]

I am just picking up a throwaway comment written on here recently basically about using the bike lane if you have a bike.

There are not that many really if you look about and I never use them, always citing the amount of debris and crap that seems to accumulate with the general camber of a road..(ok a camber is probably stretching the roadmakers ability)

Today I decided to use the stretch along the canal road from Suthep Road to Mae Hia traffic lights, maybe 5/6km

In ten minutes in the bike lane this is what I encountered.

• 4 people selling lottery tickets, table and umbrellas about 50m apart
• A builders truck parked beside a ton of bagged cement.
• A parked coach
• 7 cars parked outside the new restaurant…the bike lane is the overspill car park apparently.
• One motorbike coming towards me.
• One motorbike parked with rider playing on his phone
• One fruit seller with wood stall
• One somtam seller with wood stall
• A 6m3 concrete mixer pumping out to an adjacent development
• A 20m sand drift from wagons exiting a building site.
• A dog; obviously lost or going for somtam
• 10 orange cones that the police have set up as a new checkpoint/roadblock now.
• Builders material stacked for the installation of new traffic lights
• 3 typical advertsing “flags”

On this occasion I saw no bike accidents but over the course of a week 3 months ago I saw 4 bike accidents, and one car accident that looked like no other vehicle was involved.

So bike lane for bikes…….I think not…..bike lanes to run business rent free…more like it.

Not angry, as I don’t use them, just an observation of what you will encounter.

[BB1955]

• I travel that road quite often and although I encounter some of the same , it is nice to have locations where you can use it ... I have also found that in the turns it is also Mario Andreti lane for cars ......

[Ulysses G.]

There is no such thing as an actual bike lane in Thailand, but there is the benefit of being able to go in both directions, because the bike lane is clearly marked. Unfortunately, motorcycles also use the supposed bike lane as an excuse to go in both directions, even though it does not apply to them. TIT (this is Thailand.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Ulysses G.

[taotoo]

Not sure if bikes means bicycles or motorbikes. The roads near me have combined bicycle/motorbike lanes. Maybe it varies.

[DaddyWarbucks]

Situations like this usually surprise people who have recently arrived in Thailand.

[Thighlander]

With no more room on the sidewalk, where else are they supposed to set up?

[northernjohn]

I find them easier to walk in than the sidewalks. Not many around and as UlyssesG says a little bit confusiing

[Longtooth]

There is no such thing as an actual bike lane in Thailand, but there is the benefit of being able to go in both directions, because the bike lane is clearly marked. Unfortunately, motorcycles also use the supposed bike lane as an excuse to go in both directions, even though it does not apply to them. TIT (this is Thailand.

It makes you smile, shake your head, and cry, all at the same time. Up by Mae Sai here, the cars and trucks come down the bike lane the wrong way, because the the highway has a long center island divider, and they don't want to travel down and back to the U-turn. If they encounter a "business", such as a strawberry stand, where people are already parking two deep, side by side, to buy strawberrys, the "wrong way Corigan" cars just swerve out onto the highway coming straight at you, the wrong way! Wow, my intended comment turned into a RANT! Oh well, be safe out there!