Irritating traffic behaviour (1)

This morning, as I was attempting to cross the road outside my apartment building in order to hail a cab up to Wudaokou, I saw one of the dreaded (silent-but-deadly) electric bicycles approaching from my left (at least it was on the correct side of the road!), so I thought I'd better wait for it to pass. A second of these death-dealing machines appeared, drawing alongside the first. Evidently the two riders knew each other. They began to chat to each other - slowing to a crawl, no more than about 1.5mph; moving along in line abreast, 2 or 3 feet apart, effectively blocking almost an entire lane of the road; and looking at each other rather than at the road ahead.

A regular bicycle coming up behind this moving roadblock tried to overtake...... but the rider couldn't be bothered to work up a speed of more than about 2.5mph.

So, I now had three vehicles approaching me in line abreast, at less than walking speed, taking up the entire nearside lane. And then, of course, a car overtook all three of them, using the opposite side of the road. At least there was no oncoming traffic, since the light at the end of the street was red.

I could quite easily have got across the near-empty street as soon as I had cleared the nearside bike lane. But I was prevented from doing this by these two idiots pootling along at a snail's pace while having a chit-chat together. It is often thus: the murderous motor cars are comparatively little hassle; it's getting across the bike lane that causes all the grief.