The raucous horn sounded half a second before the ute skimmed past me, its side-view mirror just missing my handlebar. The driver’s voice bellowed through the open passenger window: “Get in the f---ing bike lane!”

In truth, I wasn’t in the bike lane, but given the circumstances, that was hardly surprising. The road is a popular bicycle conduit through my suburb – wide, straight and with refuge islands and roundabouts that help to keep the traffic well-behaved.

Zoned out ... many so-called cycle lanes are in the door zone of parked cars. Credit:Brock Perks

But as for the “bike lane” – it’s a line of peeling white paint on the road, with an occasional painted stencil of a bicycle to indicate its purported purpose. The strip of paint is about a metre away from the door handle of a parked car – if it's a compact car that has been carefully parked. If the car is a wider beast, such as the Falcon I used to drive, or any of the millions of 4WDs on our roads, the vehicle will all but engulf the so-called “bicycle lane”.

And I wasn't in the lane because I was about to weave around a boat and trailer that were entirely obscuring the way.