PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — There are lanes for cars and lanes for bikes, but unfortunately sometimes those two come together — putting people in harm's way.

This week's Traffic Inbox looks at Gandy Boulevard and a dangerous situation.

David Vescovi is an avid cyclist and while he doesn't cycle to work every day, when the weather is right and he's feeling like taking his life in his hands, he rides his bike there.

The stretch is Gandy Boulevard between 16th Street North in St. Petersburg and Grand Avenue in Pinellas Park.

You'd think the toughest part would be at the Interstate 275 interchange.

"Not too bad," Vescovi said. "You've got good visibility up the entrance, or the egress I guess they call it. But they do have a bicycle crossing lane there and some of the other places, they actually have a crosswalk light."

But at westbound Gandy, where the southbound interstate traffic is coming off the highway, the bike lane goes away.

There is plenty of room on the shoulder for David's bike. But it turns out it's also plenty of room for a car too.

"Around 5 o'clock the traffic backs up, so they don't want to merge in and wait, so they just decide to drive in the bicycle lane," he said.

And if David is in that lane?

"I've gone off to the side, right into the grass a couple times," he said.

Sky 9 video shows the back-ups and how traffic from 275 merges into the two lanes approaching the Grand Avenue light. It's that wide right shoulder where drivers who don't want to wait use as a travel lane, putting Vescovi and other cyclists in danger.

He says there are two easy fixes to the problem.

"Either put the white lane marker sticks to force them to merge, or just widen that hundred-yard section and add the lane all the way down," he said.

That is exactly what the state intends to do. Kris Carson with the Florida Department of Transportation said it has reviewed the situation and will be installing those lane delineation poles from the existing merge point to where the right turn lane begins.