"I prefer to pay the fine than risk ending up under another car" - Domenico Pozzovivo continues to encounter issues after retiring
Cycling
Riding a bike as a duo, side-by-side, is a regular situation for cyclists on the road, including for safety reasons. Domenico Pozzovivo, who retired from cycling only a couple of months ago, was fined whilst riding with UAE Team Emirates' Diego Ulissi because of this but in the wake of Remco Evenepoel's accident, he reassures that he would always choose that over another car crash.
Pozzovivo shared this with TuttoBiciWeb: “They followed us for a while, as if they were escorting us. They wanted to check that I stayed on the left side of the road and once they made sure that I was, they signaled for us to follow them to the nearest station.”
The Italian veteran will have in memory too well compatriots such as Michele Scarponi and most recently Davide Rebellin who have trafically lost their life after being hit by vehicles on the road. Pozzovivo is well aware of the risks pro cyclist go through and is not willing to sacrifice this safety aspect.
“The problem is not the fine but, as I explained to the Carabinieri, cyclists are too often grazed by cars who come too close. And for that reason I prefer to always ride side-by-side with the person accompanying me to increase my visibility, my visible ‘mass’," he explains. Someone like him, specially, who has experience such accidents in the past, will know too well what it can lead to...
“I have already been hit several times, and I do not intend to take any more risks," he affirms. "As long as I ride a bike, I will always ride two abreast. This law needs to be changed to what they do in Great Britain and other places, where it’s legally permitted to ride side by side. I prefer to pay the fine than risk ending up under another car.”
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Why one cannot ride side by side? To overtake a cyclist without breaking the law you need to leave 1,5 meter space between a cyclist and a driver. You cannot do that when other car is approaching from the opposite direction, thus you need to wait until the road ahed is clear to overtake. You need to wait.
Unfortunately this is not a law in many countries where legally there us no minimum distance and law only speaks of danger which is arbitrary and different for everyone so teaches or helps no-one. Once upon a time laws were made with the expectation people had common sense. Today we see laws as an obstacle to contour or contest and have lost the ability to understand what its original intent was.
Absolutely, we should never tolerate bad, outdated, dangerous laws and it is sickening how long it often changes to change them. Many drivers have a psychological problem with overtaking single cyclists. Even with no oncoming traffic or potential dangers they feel thay have to overtake within their lane thus leaving the cyclist very little space (let alone effects from feeling danger, turbulence, winds, road surface problems to avoid). Peopke have no problem moving all the way over to the opposite lane to overtake other slower vehicles including tractors and trucks, so why do they insist on staying as close as possible to cyclists on the side of roads? It’s no harder to overtake double than single riders. And, if they can’t accept double riders, it would be time to consider why 90% of cars need to be double the needed width to carry a single person. So just for arguments’ sake, how would drivers feel if they were forced into a narrow single-seater and made to drive next to the pavement in order to be overtaken by bigger vehicles?
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