The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule.
These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive.
The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any new change in behavior regardless of what it is.
Those headlines look silly now, but they are the Industrial Revolution’s version of “AI/smartphones/social media/video games/ridesharing/etc are ruining everything” articles.
Those headlines look silly now, but they ... were featured in reputable publications at the time, said by reputable and in some cases domain expert people at the time.
I say that not to be one of those "mainstream media blah blah" people, its just that when it comes to new things or change in general nobody has a f'ing clue.
Cycling was becoming quite common in the UK and it was actively suppressed by urban planning because the stance was that "it was for the poors" and car travel (a newer mode of transport) was much preferred because it was luxurious.
This is how I read it too. It highlights an intersting pattern, but how should that influence how we see new technology? I would hope people don't think it means we should just dismiss potential problems as needless fear mongering.
There's pretty legit concerns with social media and the engagement economy. It's better to be concerned when these technologies are new, rather than when they have potentially adjusted peoples' lifestyle for the worse.
Also, this bicycle case is clearly absurd in hindsight - but I question whether it may have been kind of absurd back then too. Sure, there are some major publications in these examples, but are these just cherry picked examples or were people genuinely concerned? Does this actually represent a large chunk of media coverage at the time?
Precisely. See this same trend with online shopping, social media, and app-based food delivery. If they sucked, they wouldn't be so ubiquitous. But they are.
Indeed, many people now don't know that the rise of the bicycle predated rise of the car by a couple decades so people complaining about bicycles were also complaining about changes in the pace of life.
And generally new tech and new ways of living have gone together and so people who don't like a new order naturally use the tech as a short-hand and indeed simplify the situation imagine it the cause. And, of course, various new orders have always had desirable and undesirable qualities (from most points of view) and reducing the changes to the tech isn't correct, the tech is often necessary.
I'm not surprised in the slightest at these newspaper headlines in the linked tweets. They seem par for the course where I live.
I sold my car at a profit two months ago and have been walking, cycling, and riding the bus where I need to go. Occasionally my trip calls for an Uber/Lyft. Wow, I have become a pariah in some people's eyes. People have made comments to my face about how it's odd I don't own a car and how it would be best that I get another. Someone scoffed when I answered their question of how I got to their place from mine when I told them I took the bus on a direct route.
People do seem to be publicly supportive of me biking for short trips and for exercise, but they're mostly still in the phase of being introduced to the idea that someone could survive only biking. Biking as a primary form of transportation is still a foreign concept to them. I live in a very central part of the city, but this is a car dominated Texas city.
Unfortunately, biking infrastructure and car etiquette is extremely poor around here. I find myself having to carefully choose my routes and am unable to reach certain places by bike that are quite close because it's not worth the risk. I hope cars begin to open more to the idea of bicyclists being around. A lot of great people I know have expressed negative sentiments towards bicyclists, so I have to believe there's a larger cultural issue at play.
Same or similar, I sold my car at a profit in spring and went playing around in Europe all summer and then dipped out of there when they turned the gas off. best of all worlds!
Back in the states this year, I only had one social outing / date where it was "weird" I didn't have a car, in this car centric city.
I actually adjusted in a slightly different way, I got a second lease in another central area of town. (This city has no single "central" area, but multiple happening and trendy areas)
so I just uber between my places once a week and stay in the other spot. this solves the logistical challenges of wanting to hang out in the happening area, like maybe I go co-work in that area in the day time but now I have my laptop but don't want to go all the way back to my first spot to drop it off before hanging out, well problem solved I'm staying in my second spot in that area all week. although I avoided it, due to possible theft, I could have stored stuff in my car and used to sometimes. but now I actually get naps in between places by taking ubers or other forms of transit, keeps me fresh for longer, and I can indulge more if I wanted to at the event, and I have more peace of mind for my stuff being at my place.
Regarding cultural issues at play. I had begun thinking about inequality. Like, for the first time ever we can have multiple high paying jobs (instead of multiple low paying jobs, or one moderate/high paying job and a low paying moonlighting/moderate freelance gig on the side), and we can also have multiple places. Politicians and municipalities have no clue to address housing or whatever.
There is something about driving that seems to trigger mass mental illness. It’s such a deeply unnatural activity that makes otherwise normal people violent.
And there are plenty of studies showing car commute times directly link to mental and physical health decline.
Don't forget the blood on the political class for this.
After all, they're the ones who made murdering with a car the most penalty free and easily forgiven way of murdering someone.
In some cities you can be comically negligent - I'm talking murdering people over on the side walk because you dropped a bottle of water in your car - and be perfectly okay.
This is why I cringe a bit at those bemoaning the horrible, awful, traumatic fate of journalism. Journalism is stupid. It always was stupid. It always will be stupid. That's not to say it has no value. But the reader has always been and always will be responsible to sift through the heaping mounds of dumb and find that value. I'm not exaggerating when I say, the New York Times, our paper of record has published some of the stupidest things you may ever read. Papers schilled for business, hacked for parties and confabulated for themselves since always.
On the other hand, the decline of local journalism is a serious crisis. Particularly the death of local investigative journalism. I would be very surprised if in 30 years or so we don't look back and see a noticable increase in local corruption correlated with the decline in local journalistic accountability.
"I miss the time when we could trust the news to just give us the simple truth!"
Dude, that's a time that never existed. The news has always been at least as much propaganda as it is simple information sharing.
Perhaps the only reason we think it's especially bad now is that we're all aware of competing propaganda organizations pushing conflicting narratives. In the past, you might only have one local newspaper, so it was easier to believe that the local propaganda organization that controls your mind is telling the simple truth. But the modern world forces all of us to face the reality that the news has never been something we can naively trust.
Let alone they are not even written by THEMSELVES half of the time. A lot of articles are literally paid ads disguised as news. Other "news" are forced by the management because it comes from their further higher ups.
Some of Mark Twain's funniest stories/articles mock and lambast newsmen, more people would be aware of this if they had read literature instead of biking around like a bunch of marriage and furniture hating communists.
All: come on you guys, this is not an occasion to have a generic flamewar about bicycles. The interest here (the intellectual interest, at least) is obviously historical.
Bicycle-vs.car flamewars are perhaps second only to cat-vs.dog flamewars as the lamest and most easily avoidable, and—perhaps this is connected—prone to getting surprisingly nasty.
There is nothing new under the sun. Today we have "Things people blame on cars".
I've read many Americans that argue that cars are somehow destructive to community live. Here in Europe, people in rural areas or small towns are entirely dependend on cars, even more, they love their cars (and rightfully so). Yet, they have healthy communities, live in large houses. Nature is near, history at hand (look, you have a nice, old forest, a lake, and a medieval castle over there!), and the air is clean. On the other hand, in large cities, you might not need a car most of the time and many people don't have one. Still, this does not create vibrant communities where people just spontaneously interact with each other. You just have more things to choose from on Uber eats.
I still like large cities for the sheer amount of interesting people you meet; but the ideal is a small, car-heavy community in the vicinity of a large metropolis. Note: Those communities grew organically, they have a long history, and you can feel it. This makes them different from the two prominent technocratic urban planning fantasies: McMansion suburbs as well as the new car-free "communities".
> Here in Europe, people in rural areas or small towns are entirely dependend on cars
My grand-parents lived in a small town (<10k) and never had a car. Walked, bicycled (X) or took the bus, train, or tram. Then, in the 1960s, cars became more popular, shops moved to the city limits to save rent (supermarkets), bus lines closed. The tram was discontinued because it was a "mode of transport of the past". Result: everybody became "entirely dependend on cars".
(X) That was in a very hilly town, with simple bikes without gears.
I lived in rural towns most of my life, never owned a car. I wasn't the only one, and i still have friends there whose most used transportation system is bike (either that or tractor).
Also buses are great there if you can organize yourself.
Cars by themselves? No. Car-centric design? Yes. The most obvious place to see this in the US is suburbs designed entirely around cars, where there's often literally nothing but cul-de-sacs and single-family homes for miles and miles and it's nigh-impossible to do anything out of the house without a car.
> ...too many hours on a bicycle saddle can compress the artery and vital nerves leading to the penis.
> The result? A risk of numbness, pain, and erectile dysfunction.
> Male cyclists can place a significant percentage of their weight on their perineum, an area between the scrotum and the anus where the nerves and arteries to the penis pass. This pressure -- and a narrow saddle seat -- can injure the arteries and nerves.
> "The earliest warning sign is numbness or tingling," says Irwin Goldstein, MD, director of San Diego Sexual Medicine.
> Even a young man may lose the ability to achieve an erection, says Goldstein, who pioneered an operation that restores blood flow and sexual potency in 65%-75% of cases.
I wonder if nowadays we still see most of these as undesirable. I don't mean appendicitis :) but the rest...
Reading books is nice, but better if balanced with exercise. Most other scares are really moral panic about people getting more freedom "than in the presence of chaperones" :)
Actually, it doesn't seem to be specific of bikes. Probably cars were too expensive for women and young people to own.
I found this article in an 1896 Australian magazine that bicycle riding was "a new disease is a kind of intoxication for movement, that is shown in an unconscious, or semi-unconscious bearing of the body, which becomes especially plain when great steadiness is called for, as for instance, in sitting for a photograph. It is shown also in an over desire for rapidity of motion, as if it were necessary at every moment to overcome time and curtail distances by labor of an extreme kind. The constant impression given is that the sufferer, from this general vibratory condition of the body, must jump on his wheel and be off, although the weather and circumstances are not opportune for riding. The whole manner bespeaks haste, although there is not the slightest occasion for it." https://twitter.com/martyvis/status/1562362136612859904
To be fair, bicycles probably did lead to more marriage breakups. Certainly in the UK they're considered a key part of emancipation. No longer, as a woman, is your dating pool limited entirely to the boys in your village. And if the boy you did marry turns out to be an angry drunk - well. Bicycles aren't fast, but they're faster than walking. And they're cheap.
And the latter, if we're honest, is the real reason for bicycle hate. The banker or tech bro on a carbon frame is both conspicuously consuming more than you and actually spending less than you. Much less. And, in a city, going faster. Hell, the homeless guy with three steel tubes lashed together might be too. That should be a right wing dream - a private investment, low regulation, small business friendly, with rewards going to the individuals who work harder.
But sometimes, we're just not nice people, and we don't like having our egos punctured.
I don't think the cost is the biggest driver of tension unless you listen to professional drivers. People don’t blame bus riders for not "paying the road tax" (a UK trope, that tax was abolished). It would explain why things got worst recently, but people don’t hate electric cars the same way for instance.
The most common angle of attack is territorial: "get off _my_ road". Cyclists shouldn’t belong there, because of the shape of the vehicle, and how it goes at different speeds (faster in traffic, slower on the free road). The hostility is shared with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN), car-free side roads converted into cul-de-sacs. Those remind cars that they are not welcome. “Invisible” bicycles match the repeated trope that cyclists run red lights (in practice, they cross with pedestrian lights at three-phase lights, when it’s safe): the behaviour on the road is different, and forces car drivers to get out of their automated reflexes, and do things they should, but never do: check their mirrors, look back in the blind side, check before opening their door. Forcing drivers outside of the mental comfort of habit-driving is what is causing so much pain and anguish.
It’s also why drivers in countries where cyclists are common don’t have the same issue: they are used to bikes and drive habitually with cyclists in mind.
That matches the biggest issue cyclists point at drivers: using their mobile phones. You can’t drive and use a phone unless you are in a fully reflex-based flow. If those reflexes don’t expect a bike passing you, it yanks you out of your flow, which is physically painful. That explains the explosive and murderous reactions from drivers.
My bike was stolen on Monday and I'm honestly still grieving the loss. A bike is more than just transport, it's freedom, exercise and a million times better at clearing your head than any other mode of commute.
This is hilarious. I remember a similar collection of headlines and opinion pieces calling out ‘newspapers on trains causing people not to talk to each other’, where ‘newspapers’ could be easily substituted for ‘smartphones’ to bring the title in the current era.
I wonder which piece of technology is currently cautioned as the root of all evil, bringing a laugh to future historians. ‘Video Games’ (causing violence and obesity) come to mind, and ‘AI’ (taking our jobs).
It's still the bicycle. In my city in just the last year, I've seen bicycling accused of causing gentrification (along with Little Free Libraries), traffic, juvenile delinquency, gun violence, falling tax revenues, poor road maintenance, property tax increases, and undoubtedly some more that I've forgotten.
> I wonder which piece of technology is currently cautioned as the root of all evil, bringing a laugh to future historians. ‘Video Games’ (causing violence and obesity) come to mind, and ‘AI’ (taking our jobs).
We live in a mountainous area that is quite popular with road bicyclists. We have a really great law that requires drivers to give them 3 feet of space when passing.
In this one nearby area there are essentially no shoulders (near vertical mountain on one side, guardrail with a drop on the other side). Additionally, there are many blind corners which logically means a double yellow line on a two lane road.
I was driving through this area with my family in the car and we come upon a bicyclist. We can't legally or safely pass so I slow down and start following him through the curves. At some point we start hearing pings on the roof of our car. Looking up the mountain side it is clearly the start of a rock slide. I wanted to zoom ahead and get clear of the slide as surely it would start to pick up. However, that came at the risk of going into the oncoming lane at a blind curve, as well as not giving the cyclist their required 3 feet. Luckily for me a giant boulder took the cyclist down the hill and I was able to floor it and quickly escape unscathed. Good thing the bicyclist was wearing his helmet, it saved his life!
I'm from the Netherlands, so very much proud of our bicycle culture which only works because it's a fundamental part of our road design and related facilities, like bicycle parking. It's questionable whether you can retrofit this into a city.
Anyway, even in our little bicycle paradise there's a new danger: electrical bicycles. Currently, about 1 in 3 is electrical, and it seems most new ones sold are electrical. They are most of all popular with people 50+ y/o.
Recently I saw an accident happen from the outside security cam of a friend, the incident explaining the danger very well.
A woman in a car is trying to cross a road that intersects with a bicycle lane, so she checks for oncoming cyclists. One does seem to be oncoming in the distance. She then concludes there's plenty of time to cross, makes the move, and finds the cyclists on the hood of her car.
The way she probably read that situation: pretty far away, old guy, slow leg movement. All adding up to a low speed estimate and a high time estimate. That's how all of us have been subconsciously trained for decades.
Until electrical bicycles. The "cyclist" came on about twice as fast as expected. The obvious solution is to watch longer, to monitor speed over time. Yet to effectively get through traffic and not spend forever parked at a crossing, you do need speedy judgement. Also, these e-bikes can accelerate in ways a normal bicycle can't.
Another common dangerous e-bike situation: One passing you unexpectedly when cycling yourself, on a bicycle lane. Normally, just about 2 bicycles fit next to each other, but only barely. You'd normally anticipate such a passing because you can hear one coming behind. Now they seem to come out of nowhere, passing you by an inch at high speed.
In my opinion, what’s on trial is the ease of mobility. The bicycle was the means so it gets a mention. Now we have airplanes which probably have exacerbated the issues. A wheelman then didn’t care about furniture? Well, review a digital nomad and see what you find. They probably don’t care about a traditional home to begin with. I don’t have the references on hand but various studies & reports exist on the specific societal and behavioral changes that arrived with new advances in human mobility.
It appears that in that period only heroine, cocaine, radium, and tobacco were harmless. Stay away from bicycles and you'll be fine. What a time to be alive!
[+] [-] pembrook|3 years ago|reply
The idea of this thread isn’t that bicycles are uniquely singled out for ridicule.
These article snippets all come from a time when the bicycle was just invented and usage was growing fast (eg like any new tech). In fact, I think they were taken from a defunct Twitter account called pessimists archive.
The point is that mass media will always court controversy and bemoan any new change in behavior regardless of what it is.
Those headlines look silly now, but they are the Industrial Revolution’s version of “AI/smartphones/social media/video games/ridesharing/etc are ruining everything” articles.
[+] [-] shapefrog|3 years ago|reply
I say that not to be one of those "mainstream media blah blah" people, its just that when it comes to new things or change in general nobody has a f'ing clue.
[+] [-] dijit|3 years ago|reply
Cycling was becoming quite common in the UK and it was actively suppressed by urban planning because the stance was that "it was for the poors" and car travel (a newer mode of transport) was much preferred because it was luxurious.
Jay Foreman has a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gohSeOYheXg
[+] [-] roberttod|3 years ago|reply
There's pretty legit concerns with social media and the engagement economy. It's better to be concerned when these technologies are new, rather than when they have potentially adjusted peoples' lifestyle for the worse.
Also, this bicycle case is clearly absurd in hindsight - but I question whether it may have been kind of absurd back then too. Sure, there are some major publications in these examples, but are these just cherry picked examples or were people genuinely concerned? Does this actually represent a large chunk of media coverage at the time?
[+] [-] hackernewds|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickthrower2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldgradstudent|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joe_the_user|3 years ago|reply
And generally new tech and new ways of living have gone together and so people who don't like a new order naturally use the tech as a short-hand and indeed simplify the situation imagine it the cause. And, of course, various new orders have always had desirable and undesirable qualities (from most points of view) and reducing the changes to the tech isn't correct, the tech is often necessary.
[+] [-] swyx|3 years ago|reply
Jason Feifer did change the name of the podcast, which i do recommend: https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/did-pessimists-archive-c...
[+] [-] pwpw|3 years ago|reply
I sold my car at a profit two months ago and have been walking, cycling, and riding the bus where I need to go. Occasionally my trip calls for an Uber/Lyft. Wow, I have become a pariah in some people's eyes. People have made comments to my face about how it's odd I don't own a car and how it would be best that I get another. Someone scoffed when I answered their question of how I got to their place from mine when I told them I took the bus on a direct route.
People do seem to be publicly supportive of me biking for short trips and for exercise, but they're mostly still in the phase of being introduced to the idea that someone could survive only biking. Biking as a primary form of transportation is still a foreign concept to them. I live in a very central part of the city, but this is a car dominated Texas city.
Unfortunately, biking infrastructure and car etiquette is extremely poor around here. I find myself having to carefully choose my routes and am unable to reach certain places by bike that are quite close because it's not worth the risk. I hope cars begin to open more to the idea of bicyclists being around. A lot of great people I know have expressed negative sentiments towards bicyclists, so I have to believe there's a larger cultural issue at play.
[+] [-] yieldcrv|3 years ago|reply
Back in the states this year, I only had one social outing / date where it was "weird" I didn't have a car, in this car centric city.
I actually adjusted in a slightly different way, I got a second lease in another central area of town. (This city has no single "central" area, but multiple happening and trendy areas)
so I just uber between my places once a week and stay in the other spot. this solves the logistical challenges of wanting to hang out in the happening area, like maybe I go co-work in that area in the day time but now I have my laptop but don't want to go all the way back to my first spot to drop it off before hanging out, well problem solved I'm staying in my second spot in that area all week. although I avoided it, due to possible theft, I could have stored stuff in my car and used to sometimes. but now I actually get naps in between places by taking ubers or other forms of transit, keeps me fresh for longer, and I can indulge more if I wanted to at the event, and I have more peace of mind for my stuff being at my place.
Regarding cultural issues at play. I had begun thinking about inequality. Like, for the first time ever we can have multiple high paying jobs (instead of multiple low paying jobs, or one moderate/high paying job and a low paying moonlighting/moderate freelance gig on the side), and we can also have multiple places. Politicians and municipalities have no clue to address housing or whatever.
[+] [-] Raed667|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gigachad|3 years ago|reply
And there are plenty of studies showing car commute times directly link to mental and physical health decline.
[+] [-] tenpies|3 years ago|reply
After all, they're the ones who made murdering with a car the most penalty free and easily forgiven way of murdering someone.
In some cities you can be comically negligent - I'm talking murdering people over on the side walk because you dropped a bottle of water in your car - and be perfectly okay.
[+] [-] onionisafruit|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DubiousPusher|3 years ago|reply
On the other hand, the decline of local journalism is a serious crisis. Particularly the death of local investigative journalism. I would be very surprised if in 30 years or so we don't look back and see a noticable increase in local corruption correlated with the decline in local journalistic accountability.
[+] [-] anonporridge|3 years ago|reply
Dude, that's a time that never existed. The news has always been at least as much propaganda as it is simple information sharing.
Perhaps the only reason we think it's especially bad now is that we're all aware of competing propaganda organizations pushing conflicting narratives. In the past, you might only have one local newspaper, so it was easier to believe that the local propaganda organization that controls your mind is telling the simple truth. But the modern world forces all of us to face the reality that the news has never been something we can naively trust.
[+] [-] jedberg|3 years ago|reply
Then I would read the other articles in the same paper assuming they got everything right about those subjects I knew nothing about!
[+] [-] epigramx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fellowniusmonk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
Bicycle-vs.car flamewars are perhaps second only to cat-vs.dog flamewars as the lamest and most easily avoidable, and—perhaps this is connected—prone to getting surprisingly nasty.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] ElCheapo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] turing_complete|3 years ago|reply
I've read many Americans that argue that cars are somehow destructive to community live. Here in Europe, people in rural areas or small towns are entirely dependend on cars, even more, they love their cars (and rightfully so). Yet, they have healthy communities, live in large houses. Nature is near, history at hand (look, you have a nice, old forest, a lake, and a medieval castle over there!), and the air is clean. On the other hand, in large cities, you might not need a car most of the time and many people don't have one. Still, this does not create vibrant communities where people just spontaneously interact with each other. You just have more things to choose from on Uber eats.
I still like large cities for the sheer amount of interesting people you meet; but the ideal is a small, car-heavy community in the vicinity of a large metropolis. Note: Those communities grew organically, they have a long history, and you can feel it. This makes them different from the two prominent technocratic urban planning fantasies: McMansion suburbs as well as the new car-free "communities".
[+] [-] tralarpa|3 years ago|reply
My grand-parents lived in a small town (<10k) and never had a car. Walked, bicycled (X) or took the bus, train, or tram. Then, in the 1960s, cars became more popular, shops moved to the city limits to save rent (supermarkets), bus lines closed. The tram was discontinued because it was a "mode of transport of the past". Result: everybody became "entirely dependend on cars".
(X) That was in a very hilly town, with simple bikes without gears.
[+] [-] orwin|3 years ago|reply
Also buses are great there if you can organize yourself.
[+] [-] crooked-v|3 years ago|reply
Cars by themselves? No. Car-centric design? Yes. The most obvious place to see this in the US is suburbs designed entirely around cars, where there's often literally nothing but cul-de-sacs and single-family homes for miles and miles and it's nigh-impossible to do anything out of the house without a car.
[+] [-] bertil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tablespoon|3 years ago|reply
> Biking linked to impotence
IMHO, that one's probably true:
https://www.webmd.com/men/features/biking-and-erectile-dysfu...:
> ...too many hours on a bicycle saddle can compress the artery and vital nerves leading to the penis.
> The result? A risk of numbness, pain, and erectile dysfunction.
> Male cyclists can place a significant percentage of their weight on their perineum, an area between the scrotum and the anus where the nerves and arteries to the penis pass. This pressure -- and a narrow saddle seat -- can injure the arteries and nerves.
> "The earliest warning sign is numbness or tingling," says Irwin Goldstein, MD, director of San Diego Sexual Medicine.
> Even a young man may lose the ability to achieve an erection, says Goldstein, who pioneered an operation that restores blood flow and sexual potency in 65%-75% of cases.
[+] [-] kjkjadksj|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narag|3 years ago|reply
Reading books is nice, but better if balanced with exercise. Most other scares are really moral panic about people getting more freedom "than in the presence of chaperones" :)
Actually, it doesn't seem to be specific of bikes. Probably cars were too expensive for women and young people to own.
[+] [-] grapeskin|3 years ago|reply
I’m more out of touch with modern trends than I thought.
[+] [-] martyvis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yodelshady|3 years ago|reply
And the latter, if we're honest, is the real reason for bicycle hate. The banker or tech bro on a carbon frame is both conspicuously consuming more than you and actually spending less than you. Much less. And, in a city, going faster. Hell, the homeless guy with three steel tubes lashed together might be too. That should be a right wing dream - a private investment, low regulation, small business friendly, with rewards going to the individuals who work harder.
But sometimes, we're just not nice people, and we don't like having our egos punctured.
[+] [-] bertil|3 years ago|reply
The most common angle of attack is territorial: "get off _my_ road". Cyclists shouldn’t belong there, because of the shape of the vehicle, and how it goes at different speeds (faster in traffic, slower on the free road). The hostility is shared with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN), car-free side roads converted into cul-de-sacs. Those remind cars that they are not welcome. “Invisible” bicycles match the repeated trope that cyclists run red lights (in practice, they cross with pedestrian lights at three-phase lights, when it’s safe): the behaviour on the road is different, and forces car drivers to get out of their automated reflexes, and do things they should, but never do: check their mirrors, look back in the blind side, check before opening their door. Forcing drivers outside of the mental comfort of habit-driving is what is causing so much pain and anguish.
It’s also why drivers in countries where cyclists are common don’t have the same issue: they are used to bikes and drive habitually with cyclists in mind.
That matches the biggest issue cyclists point at drivers: using their mobile phones. You can’t drive and use a phone unless you are in a fully reflex-based flow. If those reflexes don’t expect a bike passing you, it yanks you out of your flow, which is physically painful. That explains the explosive and murderous reactions from drivers.
[+] [-] Jsharm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slingnow|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mellonaut|3 years ago|reply
I wonder which piece of technology is currently cautioned as the root of all evil, bringing a laugh to future historians. ‘Video Games’ (causing violence and obesity) come to mind, and ‘AI’ (taking our jobs).
[+] [-] raisin_churn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
Smartphones, social media.
[+] [-] krunck|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stardenburden|3 years ago|reply
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1894/08/12/106...
They blame biking for everything from insanity to killing pedestrians at random.
There's a few snippets the twitter thread could include lol
[+] [-] Oras|3 years ago|reply
{something} is the reason of {insert a problem}.
I wonder if there is a template for these titles.
* You might want to search YouTube for "Daily mail cancer song" by Russell Howards.
[+] [-] pessimizer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macinjosh|3 years ago|reply
In this one nearby area there are essentially no shoulders (near vertical mountain on one side, guardrail with a drop on the other side). Additionally, there are many blind corners which logically means a double yellow line on a two lane road.
I was driving through this area with my family in the car and we come upon a bicyclist. We can't legally or safely pass so I slow down and start following him through the curves. At some point we start hearing pings on the roof of our car. Looking up the mountain side it is clearly the start of a rock slide. I wanted to zoom ahead and get clear of the slide as surely it would start to pick up. However, that came at the risk of going into the oncoming lane at a blind curve, as well as not giving the cyclist their required 3 feet. Luckily for me a giant boulder took the cyclist down the hill and I was able to floor it and quickly escape unscathed. Good thing the bicyclist was wearing his helmet, it saved his life!
[+] [-] fleddr|3 years ago|reply
Anyway, even in our little bicycle paradise there's a new danger: electrical bicycles. Currently, about 1 in 3 is electrical, and it seems most new ones sold are electrical. They are most of all popular with people 50+ y/o.
Recently I saw an accident happen from the outside security cam of a friend, the incident explaining the danger very well.
A woman in a car is trying to cross a road that intersects with a bicycle lane, so she checks for oncoming cyclists. One does seem to be oncoming in the distance. She then concludes there's plenty of time to cross, makes the move, and finds the cyclists on the hood of her car.
The way she probably read that situation: pretty far away, old guy, slow leg movement. All adding up to a low speed estimate and a high time estimate. That's how all of us have been subconsciously trained for decades.
Until electrical bicycles. The "cyclist" came on about twice as fast as expected. The obvious solution is to watch longer, to monitor speed over time. Yet to effectively get through traffic and not spend forever parked at a crossing, you do need speedy judgement. Also, these e-bikes can accelerate in ways a normal bicycle can't.
Another common dangerous e-bike situation: One passing you unexpectedly when cycling yourself, on a bicycle lane. Normally, just about 2 bicycles fit next to each other, but only barely. You'd normally anticipate such a passing because you can hear one coming behind. Now they seem to come out of nowhere, passing you by an inch at high speed.
[+] [-] kamban|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] progre|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yawboakye|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] durnygbur|3 years ago|reply