I wonder where this begins. Is it learned at home (from a parent driver who complains about bikers a lot)? Is there a popular TV show where they keep making fun of bikers? Do people have one bad experience with a biker and just apply that to all bikers?
My driver's ed instructor had a saying that cyclists should be shot! It was a comedy line, yeah, but he kept repeating it...
I don't know about you, but when I'm driving I always feel that either everyone else on the road should be shot, or that I should shoot myself, or both. And I'm pretty sure nearly everyone else feels the same. So if your teacher didn't say anything to a similar effect about drivers, that's because it has long been a given. In the vast majority of cities and towns, driving, cycling or even walking is just a constant pain.
Listen to shock jocks on the radio. Jokes about dooring or running over cyclists are pretty common.
There used to be a radio show in Massachusetts [0] I listened to a bunch as a teenager. They had a weekly segment for a while where drivers would call in and tell stories about how they attacked cyclists and then laugh about it. I think it was mostly just drivers expressing their violent fantasies, but one or two of the stories may have been real. It definitely dehumanized cyclists and encouraged violence against them. Later the same radio show, during the build up to the Iraq war, had an episode in which they said anti-war protesters should have their tongued ripped out at the root. Violence against groups they didn't like was a pretty common theme on their show and other radio shows.
Incidentally they were banned from Massachusetts not for advocating violence or dehumanizing the enemy of the day but for faking the Governor's death as an April fools day.
>>Do people have one bad experience with a biker and just apply that to all bikers?
As someone from the US, this phrasing confused me. "Bikers" has a much more common meaning here. If someone says they're going to a biker bar, they will not be putting on a spandex riding suit and peddling.
That said, I feel that both cyclists and bikers suffer from similar problems. I've always assumed that because of the high visibility of their difference relative to cars, people notice their illegal road behavior more. Cyclists blowing through red lights, motorcycles weaving between lanes, all of this is extremely visible to other motorists. The behavior then gets tied to the vehicle, rather than individual riders, and then people start to feel that these riders are always problematic.
I would like to start by saying I’m not against bicycles sharing the roads in anyway; I’m just attempting to explain the rationale for this kind of thinking in many people I know personally (in South Florida this is a hot button issue).
Most roads are built primarily for motor vehicles, so when you are driving a car, you are driving on a road that you paid for specifically to drive your car on, and somebody else is leisurely (except for in certain big cities, most bicycling miles are done for leisure or sport) enjoying the same road for free, on a bicycle, putting themselves at risk and putting some of the burden of their risk on you (if they veer into your lane and you hit them, good luck trying to get out of that).
A grossly exaggerated analogy would be seeing people come to your apartment complex and using the garbage chute as a slide for their kids to play on. If the kids are playing in the chute and you put garbage down it and injure one of them, you’re on the hook. Imagine how this would make you feel, every time you see parents bringing their kids to play in the chute.
As a driver, a cyclist, and a pedestrian I thought about it a lot. I think it boils down to an interdependent combination of culture, infrastructure, and rules of the road and their enforcement.
First, it really helps if cycling infrastructure is separated from car and pedestrian infrastructure as much as possible. The more separation, the better. In Ottawa, for example, there are several dedicated cross-city bike trails, but not too many in Toronto, they are far and wide between, and it shows. It is not always possible and in that case I would give bicyclists preferential treatment on dedicated side streets.
The bike trails should be immediately visible to anyone, e.g. painted green for the full length. This makes it immediately visible for everyone: turning cars, passengers exiting the vehicle, pedestrians who decided to jaywalk and scanned the space for cars, but not bikes.
The road rules should be clear, strict and unambiguous for bikes. I understand that stopping at the STOP sign is inconvenient on a bike (losing momentum and balance, braking and pedaling up is hard), but cyclists should ignore stop sign if and only if there is no one else on the intersection. If there are cars, pedestrians, or other bikes crossing it, cyclists _must_ resort to the stop rule. I do not know how many times I have seen cyclists thinking this does not apply to them.
Aggressive behavior against cyclists is unfortunately fairly common, but as a daily transportation cyclist I worry more about well-intentioned bad drivers. For example, these are the drivers who turn across the bike lane without checking for on-coming cyclists. It's not that these drivers don't consider cyclists as fully human. They're just bad drivers and probably have similar problems with other drivers. Cyclists are just more vulnerable to them.
I was hauling ass down a one-way, two-lane street in the bike lane (shoulder). A woman in a sedan pulled in from a side street on the left, crossed into the right lane, then swerved across my lane to make a right turn into a shopping plaza.
I had no vector for escape, it was too sudden. I believed I would go through her right rear window and wind up in the car. Instead, the bicycle and I slammed laterally against her car and flew forward at her angle, my sternum striking her passenger-side mirror. As it happened, I thought it would kill me, but the mirror just exploded into a hundred pieces.
I landed on the ground with my bike next to her now-stopped vehicle, solar plexus aching but otherwise almost unharmed.
She was very apologetic. She said she had many friends who were cyclists, and she was aghast at the idea of hurting any of them. She told me if I was unhurt, and agreed not to request the police, she would happily absorb the damage to her vehicle (it was really badly damaged by my bike scraping over 4 feet of her paint).
After I caught my breath and realized I was unharmed, I told her it was a fair cop and we were good. But I will definitely never forget the terror I felt as I slammed into her.
I don't drive or cycle (on a regular basis), and I haven't been particularly exposed to generic rage towards cyclists. I don't think I see cyclists as any less human than cars and their drivers, or bikers for that matter. Yet of all the aforementioned groups, the only ones I've learned to be especially cautious of (and to which I linked negative preconceptions) are cyclists.
This was never a problem for me when living in the Netherlands, where there is good infrastructure and rules. (At least after getting past the phase where you simply need to adapt to the ridiculous number of bikes when compared to other countries).
After moving to Dublin, it doesn't matter if you're on the sidewalk, pedestrian-only bridges, or crossing a pedestrian crossing when the light is green, you always have to watch out for bikes because you never know when one is heading right into you, regardless of how many traffic rules they need to be breaking to do so. From my own anecdotal evidence I've learned to expect worse/reckless behavior from cyclists compared to any other road user.
I'm sure they aren't worse people that anyone else and this is probably aggravated by the severely lacking infrastructure over here, but I seriously doubt "dehumanization" is the root cause of the problem here (even if it may contribute to a vicious cycle). From a driver's perspective, better infrastructure would probably also make them stress less over accidentally causing serious harm to a cyclist over something that would otherwise be their fault.
That said, I don't have stats or studies to back any of this up and this is all assumed from my own observations.
In my own experience I think a lot of this comes from both cyclists and cars not understanding the rules on how to interact with each other. For example, I see a lot of cyclists riding too far out in to the road, riding two abreast when there is not really a shoulder, not signaling properly or rolling through stop signs. And on the other side I see a lot of cars passing cars while cyclists are present or turning in front of cyclists.
I am an avid cyclist, and I think I probably get angrier than the average person when I see a cyclist breaking the rules cause I am thinking to myself "you are making the rest of us look bad."
And the comments here are no better than the usual, with the classic anti cycling tropes on full display:
- Don't pay (road tax)
- Illegitimate road user
- Riding abreast (in my jurisdiction this is legal and in many places it is and in fact encouraged as it makes a group of cyclists easier to pass)
- Stop signs/red lights/don't obey traffic rules (as if cyclists are the only group for which any of this is true)
I have to conclude I hate cyclists. This isn't something that just happened, but rather has been due to a long history of bad experiences with cyclists.
My earliest contempt for cyclists began in elementary school, where cyclist kids would just jump on their bikes and ride home while I had to slog through a long bus drive. Cyclist kids felt they were just better than others.
Then in college, cyclists going to and from class on their bicycles were annoying as hell. How many times I would just be walking minding my own business and a dude on a bike out of nowhere weaves through a crowd and just cuts across me nearly hitting me, and at an unsafe speed. I'm sure when you're riding a bike you have no idea how fast you're going, but as a pedestrian it's easy to see how close these individuals were to disaster. What if I had suddenly stepped in a different direction into the path of the bike?
As a careerist adult, cities are no better. I distinctly recall one time in New York City where I was about to cross an intersection when suddenly I heard someone shout, a cyclist was heading straight for me downhill and I jolted myself backward narrowly missing the bastard. He could have easily struck me down.
And then of course on the roadways there is always an anxiety when I see a cyclist. I have to make sure I move aside at least three feet and slow down considerably because I know if I hit them I'll probably be spending time in prison. I don't have a problem if you want to risk your life but you should have to accept the responsibility of your actions all on your own at that point.
This is just the transport equivalent of racism. I'm sure you've had plenty of run-ins with cars too but you forget them all because they don't confirm your biases and you drive a car so car drivers can't be careless right?
> I have to make sure I move aside at least three feet and slow down considerably because I know if I hit them I'll probably be spending time in prison
That's why you slow down and give them space? Because you don't want to go to prison? Not because you don't want to hurt them?
Not 100% on topic, but one of the pet peeves I have noticed with cyclists is quite a few of them do not obey the rules of the road. As vehicles, they have to stop at stop signs and lights, but feel like quite an appreciable percentage do not. I'm not saying drivers are entirely faultless, but feels like its to a lesser extent and not as flagrantly.
> As vehicles, they have to stop at stop signs and lights, but feel like quite an appreciable percentage do not.
I guess that this is a problem of how energy conservation works. When a cyclists stops they lose all their gained energy, like any other vehicle. But then, the cyclist needs to put a lot of effort to get again to their original speed. If that stop is in front of a slop the cyclist only option is to get off the bike and walk.
So, maybe it is more a fault on the design of the roads than on the cyclists.
1. I've yet to see a single driver who actually obeys the rules of the road. Every stop sign, every yield sign, every posted speed limit.
2. If you had to pedal like a mad-man to get your car going, every time you stopped at a stop sign, while it swayed 20-degrees side-to-side, you'd probably be making a lot more California stops, too.
It used to be (circa late 1800s) that the word 'typewriter' referred to three things: 1) the machine itself 2) the operator of such a machine could be referred to as 'a typewriter' 3) the combination of the two, that is, the machine and the person driving the machine are a singular unit (which is also speculated to be one of the reasons for a major upsurge is 'ghost-possessed typewriter fiction' at the same time [the girl operating the machine might become more than mere instrumentation]. What this is getting at is (in contemporary america) I'll argue that it is the combination of the homosapien + an automobile that is defined as human. (Just look at how we derogatorily consider those who have to take mass transit because they do not possess [or are possessed by] an automobile, therefore cannot fully actualize themselves as human beings.)
And cyclists call people in cars "cagers", and presume they're all out to kill the cyclist. The only difference in the dehumanization is that people in cars can more easily kill people not in cars.
In a past life I did somewhat serious cycling in rural Georgia as training for triathlons. So everything I'm about to say is with the caveat that it's my personal experience in one small slice of America.
Myself, and everybody I rode with, had stories of objects being thrown out of windows from passing cars in an attempt to hit you. Mainstay was was bottles but a friend did have a phonebook thrown at them. We laughed about that one...who has a phonebook these days and who keeps it in their car?
Had cars stop and try to start fights as well.
Consistently though, both while on the bike and in my social interactions with others, there is a close association between cyclists and liberals. The cycling was a visible qualifier but the anger, and not surprisingly, dehumanization, was driven more by their political and social leanings than any truly inherent dislike of cyclists.
They're delaying me seconds at intersections, they're forcing me to spend more time checking that I don't door them, they leave their bikeshares on my sidewalks, and some ((I assume)) are good people.
The unfortunate truth is that bicycles do no belong on the road with cars. The car/SUV weights 2000-5000 pounds and can go much faster than a bike. It is also heavily "armored", in that most car collisions do not result in serious injury to the occupants.
The bicycle has much lower weight, and lower speed. In addition, the majority of bicycle collisions are going to result in at least some minor injury.
The solution to this problem is to build protected bike lanes where cars cannot come. Unfortunately, there is not the political will to do it, so we go with this fiction that cars and bikes are equals, even though that results in a significant number of biker deaths.
> The solution to this problem is to build protected bike lanes where cars cannot come. Unfortunately, there is not the political will to do it, so we go with this fiction that cars and bikes are equals, even though that results in a significant number of biker deaths.
There's actually quite a bit of opposition to separate infrastructure from cyclists. While the risk of being hit from behind is reduced on separate infrastructure, there has to be intersections at some point, and that's where the danger amplifies.
In Austin, I almost never ride on the Guadalupe St. cycletrack because about one third of the time that I do, a driver turns across it without looking at an intersection. There are signs saying to look, but that doesn't seem to stop the problems.
Infrastructure can help, but it needs to be designed well, and what I see typically in the US is not designed well.
[+] [-] dfxm12|7 years ago|reply
My driver's ed instructor had a saying that cyclists should be shot! It was a comedy line, yeah, but he kept repeating it...
[+] [-] BethGagaShaggy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EthanHeilman|7 years ago|reply
There used to be a radio show in Massachusetts [0] I listened to a bunch as a teenager. They had a weekly segment for a while where drivers would call in and tell stories about how they attacked cyclists and then laugh about it. I think it was mostly just drivers expressing their violent fantasies, but one or two of the stories may have been real. It definitely dehumanized cyclists and encouraged violence against them. Later the same radio show, during the build up to the Iraq war, had an episode in which they said anti-war protesters should have their tongued ripped out at the root. Violence against groups they didn't like was a pretty common theme on their show and other radio shows.
Incidentally they were banned from Massachusetts not for advocating violence or dehumanizing the enemy of the day but for faking the Governor's death as an April fools day.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opie_and_Anthony#1995%E2%80%93...
[+] [-] moate|7 years ago|reply
As someone from the US, this phrasing confused me. "Bikers" has a much more common meaning here. If someone says they're going to a biker bar, they will not be putting on a spandex riding suit and peddling.
That said, I feel that both cyclists and bikers suffer from similar problems. I've always assumed that because of the high visibility of their difference relative to cars, people notice their illegal road behavior more. Cyclists blowing through red lights, motorcycles weaving between lanes, all of this is extremely visible to other motorists. The behavior then gets tied to the vehicle, rather than individual riders, and then people start to feel that these riders are always problematic.
[+] [-] gonational|7 years ago|reply
Most roads are built primarily for motor vehicles, so when you are driving a car, you are driving on a road that you paid for specifically to drive your car on, and somebody else is leisurely (except for in certain big cities, most bicycling miles are done for leisure or sport) enjoying the same road for free, on a bicycle, putting themselves at risk and putting some of the burden of their risk on you (if they veer into your lane and you hit them, good luck trying to get out of that).
A grossly exaggerated analogy would be seeing people come to your apartment complex and using the garbage chute as a slide for their kids to play on. If the kids are playing in the chute and you put garbage down it and injure one of them, you’re on the hook. Imagine how this would make you feel, every time you see parents bringing their kids to play in the chute.
[+] [-] coldtea|7 years ago|reply
I've never seen a biker who didn't ride like an asshole in the city...
And I'm a pedestrian...
[+] [-] loco5niner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mynegation|7 years ago|reply
First, it really helps if cycling infrastructure is separated from car and pedestrian infrastructure as much as possible. The more separation, the better. In Ottawa, for example, there are several dedicated cross-city bike trails, but not too many in Toronto, they are far and wide between, and it shows. It is not always possible and in that case I would give bicyclists preferential treatment on dedicated side streets.
The bike trails should be immediately visible to anyone, e.g. painted green for the full length. This makes it immediately visible for everyone: turning cars, passengers exiting the vehicle, pedestrians who decided to jaywalk and scanned the space for cars, but not bikes.
The road rules should be clear, strict and unambiguous for bikes. I understand that stopping at the STOP sign is inconvenient on a bike (losing momentum and balance, braking and pedaling up is hard), but cyclists should ignore stop sign if and only if there is no one else on the intersection. If there are cars, pedestrians, or other bikes crossing it, cyclists _must_ resort to the stop rule. I do not know how many times I have seen cyclists thinking this does not apply to them.
[+] [-] scandox|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mywittyname|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btrettel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ubu7737|7 years ago|reply
I was hauling ass down a one-way, two-lane street in the bike lane (shoulder). A woman in a sedan pulled in from a side street on the left, crossed into the right lane, then swerved across my lane to make a right turn into a shopping plaza.
I had no vector for escape, it was too sudden. I believed I would go through her right rear window and wind up in the car. Instead, the bicycle and I slammed laterally against her car and flew forward at her angle, my sternum striking her passenger-side mirror. As it happened, I thought it would kill me, but the mirror just exploded into a hundred pieces.
I landed on the ground with my bike next to her now-stopped vehicle, solar plexus aching but otherwise almost unharmed.
She was very apologetic. She said she had many friends who were cyclists, and she was aghast at the idea of hurting any of them. She told me if I was unhurt, and agreed not to request the police, she would happily absorb the damage to her vehicle (it was really badly damaged by my bike scraping over 4 feet of her paint).
After I caught my breath and realized I was unharmed, I told her it was a fair cop and we were good. But I will definitely never forget the terror I felt as I slammed into her.
[+] [-] luiscleto|7 years ago|reply
This was never a problem for me when living in the Netherlands, where there is good infrastructure and rules. (At least after getting past the phase where you simply need to adapt to the ridiculous number of bikes when compared to other countries).
After moving to Dublin, it doesn't matter if you're on the sidewalk, pedestrian-only bridges, or crossing a pedestrian crossing when the light is green, you always have to watch out for bikes because you never know when one is heading right into you, regardless of how many traffic rules they need to be breaking to do so. From my own anecdotal evidence I've learned to expect worse/reckless behavior from cyclists compared to any other road user.
I'm sure they aren't worse people that anyone else and this is probably aggravated by the severely lacking infrastructure over here, but I seriously doubt "dehumanization" is the root cause of the problem here (even if it may contribute to a vicious cycle). From a driver's perspective, better infrastructure would probably also make them stress less over accidentally causing serious harm to a cyclist over something that would otherwise be their fault.
That said, I don't have stats or studies to back any of this up and this is all assumed from my own observations.
[+] [-] dr_orpheus|7 years ago|reply
I am an avid cyclist, and I think I probably get angrier than the average person when I see a cyclist breaking the rules cause I am thinking to myself "you are making the rest of us look bad."
[+] [-] kiliantics|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d4rti|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] veryworried|7 years ago|reply
My earliest contempt for cyclists began in elementary school, where cyclist kids would just jump on their bikes and ride home while I had to slog through a long bus drive. Cyclist kids felt they were just better than others.
Then in college, cyclists going to and from class on their bicycles were annoying as hell. How many times I would just be walking minding my own business and a dude on a bike out of nowhere weaves through a crowd and just cuts across me nearly hitting me, and at an unsafe speed. I'm sure when you're riding a bike you have no idea how fast you're going, but as a pedestrian it's easy to see how close these individuals were to disaster. What if I had suddenly stepped in a different direction into the path of the bike?
As a careerist adult, cities are no better. I distinctly recall one time in New York City where I was about to cross an intersection when suddenly I heard someone shout, a cyclist was heading straight for me downhill and I jolted myself backward narrowly missing the bastard. He could have easily struck me down.
And then of course on the roadways there is always an anxiety when I see a cyclist. I have to make sure I move aside at least three feet and slow down considerably because I know if I hit them I'll probably be spending time in prison. I don't have a problem if you want to risk your life but you should have to accept the responsibility of your actions all on your own at that point.
[+] [-] natestemen|7 years ago|reply
lol cyclists are dying left and right and barely anyone is going to prison. the privileged class (drivers in this case) will always protect their own.
[+] [-] IshKebab|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pertymcpert|7 years ago|reply
That's why you slow down and give them space? Because you don't want to go to prison? Not because you don't want to hurt them?
[+] [-] cworth|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ypzhang2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|7 years ago|reply
I'd wager a higher percentage of cyclists stop at all stop signs than motorists who strictly obey the speed limit.
[+] [-] kartan|7 years ago|reply
I guess that this is a problem of how energy conservation works. When a cyclists stops they lose all their gained energy, like any other vehicle. But then, the cyclist needs to put a lot of effort to get again to their original speed. If that stop is in front of a slop the cyclist only option is to get off the bike and walk.
So, maybe it is more a fault on the design of the roads than on the cyclists.
[+] [-] kaybe|7 years ago|reply
It seems to me that for rule-following of motorists there is a correlation with rule quality as well (compare different countries).
This is not an excuse but an attempt for explanation.
[+] [-] goodcanadian|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkou|7 years ago|reply
2. If you had to pedal like a mad-man to get your car going, every time you stopped at a stop sign, while it swayed 20-degrees side-to-side, you'd probably be making a lot more California stops, too.
[+] [-] apocalypstyx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SrslyJosh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcolas|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klank|7 years ago|reply
Myself, and everybody I rode with, had stories of objects being thrown out of windows from passing cars in an attempt to hit you. Mainstay was was bottles but a friend did have a phonebook thrown at them. We laughed about that one...who has a phonebook these days and who keeps it in their car?
Had cars stop and try to start fights as well.
Consistently though, both while on the bike and in my social interactions with others, there is a close association between cyclists and liberals. The cycling was a visible qualifier but the anger, and not surprisingly, dehumanization, was driven more by their political and social leanings than any truly inherent dislike of cyclists.
[+] [-] gavygavs|7 years ago|reply
They're delaying me seconds at intersections, they're forcing me to spend more time checking that I don't door them, they leave their bikeshares on my sidewalks, and some ((I assume)) are good people.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|7 years ago|reply
The bicycle has much lower weight, and lower speed. In addition, the majority of bicycle collisions are going to result in at least some minor injury.
The solution to this problem is to build protected bike lanes where cars cannot come. Unfortunately, there is not the political will to do it, so we go with this fiction that cars and bikes are equals, even though that results in a significant number of biker deaths.
[+] [-] btrettel|7 years ago|reply
There's actually quite a bit of opposition to separate infrastructure from cyclists. While the risk of being hit from behind is reduced on separate infrastructure, there has to be intersections at some point, and that's where the danger amplifies.
In Austin, I almost never ride on the Guadalupe St. cycletrack because about one third of the time that I do, a driver turns across it without looking at an intersection. There are signs saying to look, but that doesn't seem to stop the problems.
Infrastructure can help, but it needs to be designed well, and what I see typically in the US is not designed well.
[+] [-] xkcd-sucks|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]