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I loved that this article focused on the peculiar de facto morality that has evolved around car culture. I quit driving about fifteen years ago, primarily get

I loved that this article focused on the peculiar de facto morality that has evolved around car culture. I quit driving about fifteen years ago, primarily get around on bicycle with the occasional train or Uber. You really need to get locked out of a car for a while to appreciate the weird sense of entitlement that drivers get. When the streets are full of cars and traffic is slow, well that’s just a fact of life, you mutter and deal with it. But if a bicycle is a driver’s commute by a few seconds, that’s license to go completely bananas. Somehow just the fact that someone owns a car makes them feel like their time is worth more than that of others, that society owes them a speedy drive, convenience, and free parking anywhere. When people are regularly encased in hermetically sealed wheeled bubbled, they turn into sociopaths.

visarga 10y ago
As a driver I often feel cyclists are reckless in how they ride in busy city streets. I have seen guys entering the path of a speeding car with no regard to his safety. Cyclists are not protected and I am acutely aware of the risks around them, and that makes me nervous. As a cyclist, I am afraid to take these risks, so I keep to sidewalks and parks. Unfortunately, when I walk on sidewalks I often feel threatened by the cyclists. They ride too fast, too close to people. They feel entitled and reckless because they have wheels and us only legs to walk. Cyclists sharing a sidewalk are just as bad, or worse compared to drivers sharing a road with cyclists. The solution would be dedicated cycling paths, but those are a rarity in my city and many of those that exist are just one meter width marked right on the sidewalk, reducing the space for walking. Sometimes the sidewalk is too narrow and people have to enter the cycling path in order to pass, and that's where a self entitled cyclist would run over you just to teach you not to step on his path. That's why I often walk with some anxiety, you never know who's on wheels and what they think they are entitled to do.
- sonthonax 10y ago
  You should be nervous while driving a car, you should be hyper-vigilant, checking for those which your two tonne mass of iron could easily kill. Driving a car should be like flying a commercial plane, it's far to much responsibility for the average person to have. I'm nervous cycling my bicycle around London, surrounded by entitled drivers who complain about cyclists at every opportunity but who don't see the problem with texting while driving at speed? The solution would be to completely rid of cars in cities, and to only allow those who are physically disabled, or those who are highly trained to drive. How long is your commute? 10 miles? that's a 30 minute cycle journey each way (I did that before a hit and run road rage driver stopped me from cycling).
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  I get that there are lousy cyclists, and I am truly embarrassed by them. But that is no excuse for drivers to behave recklessly around them. w/r/t the notion that cyclists sharing a sidewalk with pedestrians (a practice I would never condone) is "just as bad" as drivers sharing the road with cyclists, that's just stupid. A two ton machine can kill people. Pedestrians being killed by cyclists is nearly unheard of. It happened once in Central Park last year and the event was so extraordinary that bicycle blogs were talking about it for weeks.

visarga 10y ago

As a driver I often feel cyclists are reckless in how they ride in busy city streets. I have seen guys entering the path of a speeding car with no regard to his safety. Cyclists are not protected and I am acutely aware of the risks around them, and that makes me nervous. As a cyclist, I am afraid to take these risks, so I keep to sidewalks and parks. Unfortunately, when I walk on sidewalks I often feel threatened by the cyclists. They ride too fast, too close to people. They feel entitled and reckless because they have wheels and us only legs to walk. Cyclists sharing a sidewalk are just as bad, or worse compared to drivers sharing a road with cyclists. The solution would be dedicated cycling paths, but those are a rarity in my city and many of those that exist are just one meter width marked right on the sidewalk, reducing the space for walking. Sometimes the sidewalk is too narrow and people have to enter the cycling path in order to pass, and that's where a self entitled cyclist would run over you just to teach you not to step on his path. That's why I often walk with some anxiety, you never know who's on wheels and what they think they are entitled to do.

sonthonax 10y ago
You should be nervous while driving a car, you should be hyper-vigilant, checking for those which your two tonne mass of iron could easily kill. Driving a car should be like flying a commercial plane, it's far to much responsibility for the average person to have. I'm nervous cycling my bicycle around London, surrounded by entitled drivers who complain about cyclists at every opportunity but who don't see the problem with texting while driving at speed? The solution would be to completely rid of cars in cities, and to only allow those who are physically disabled, or those who are highly trained to drive. How long is your commute? 10 miles? that's a 30 minute cycle journey each way (I did that before a hit and run road rage driver stopped me from cycling).
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
I get that there are lousy cyclists, and I am truly embarrassed by them. But that is no excuse for drivers to behave recklessly around them. w/r/t the notion that cyclists sharing a sidewalk with pedestrians (a practice I would never condone) is "just as bad" as drivers sharing the road with cyclists, that's just stupid. A two ton machine can kill people. Pedestrians being killed by cyclists is nearly unheard of. It happened once in Central Park last year and the event was so extraordinary that bicycle blogs were talking about it for weeks.