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It seems like a regional thing though. In many European and Asian countries there may be animosity between some cyclists and some drivers of cars, but not the e

It seems like a regional thing though. In many European and Asian countries there may be animosity between some cyclists and some drivers of cars, but not the extreme polarisation seen in American (perhaps Australian and a few other countries too?) communities.

AmericanChopper 8y ago
Having lived in Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila, I can tell you that getting angry at cyclists wouldn’t make much sense. The roads are complete chaos in all those places, everything on the road is a deadly hazard. The roads where I live now are a lot more orderly, but cyclists get a free pass in a lot of ways. You’ll get a ticket for passing within 5 feet of a cyclist, so you better hope they’re a fast cyclist when you get stuck behind one. I also see them run reds frequently and ride across pedestrian crossings. For a group that makes up about 1% of commuters, they manage to make a disproportionate nuisance of themselves. I’m not an anti-cycling nut, but it’s not hard to see where the frustration comes from.
Tomte 8y ago
Depends. If you happen to come across extremist cyclists and at the same time oblivious or even arrogant car drivers, it can get out of hand real quick in Germany, as well. There is lots of hatred on both sides. Drivers see cyclist running a red light and generalize about those criminal cyclists. Cyclists take an idea like Critical Mass that was originally supposed to be a demonstration, a traffic-political statement, and don‘t even care about traffic policy anymore, but openly talk about how to disrupt car traffic the most so those „carholes“ get the traffic jam they deserve. It‘s just fun to them, a bit of trolling. I don‘t see the relationship improve, unless many more „common“ people use the bike. Then they would have much more understanding for the other side when driving a car, and the bike extremists would vanish in the mass as statistical noise.
- Fricken 8y ago
  What little legitimacy cyclists have established for themselves was accomplished by being pushy, not by being pushovers. With cars it was the same, they secured their rights to the road by running people over back in the early days, which makes critical mass look pretty quaint by comparison.
  - Tomte 8y ago
    Breaking law doesn‘t give you legitimacy. Injuring pedestrians doesn‘t give you legitimacy, either. You simply illustrate the extremist biker that will achieve nothing but more hatred from all other participants in traffic. That‘s why I‘m hoping for more „casual“ bikers who don‘t see the war on the street as their focal point of life.
    - Fricken 8y ago
      You're uttering mindless platitudes without anything to back it up. Look at how Trump, or Uber got their way. It certainly wasn't by taking the advice of people who disagree with them. And sure, they're hated, but they've proven that their tolerance for hate has more endurance than the hate people have to dish out on them. The 'extremist' cyclists paved the way for the more casual cyclists by not giving up.
      - dang 8y ago
        We've warned you before that posting uncivilly will get you banned here. Please don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - francisofascii 8y ago
      Not disagreeing, but it can go both ways. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and broke the law, I'm sure that created some angry white hatred, but in the end advanced equal rights for African Americans.
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago
      Unfortunately there is a lot of anti-cyclist sentiment going on, and it seems to have been increasing over the last decade or so. From my perspective in Copenhagen -- one of the foremost cycling cities in the world -- I think this is happening because policies are increasingly being enacted to favor cyclists and public transit. A lot of road improvements have favored bicycle lanes, often by decreasing the number of lanes available for cars, or by making a lot of streets one-way only for cars. Some car drivers see these as direct attacks on their chosen mode of transportation, or even their lifestyle as a whole. I see this as a necessary evil. You cannot improve conditions for one type of transport beyond a certain point, without also making conditions worse for other types of transport. Cycling, walking and public transit go very well hand-in-hand, but personal car traffic doesn't really mesh that well with anything other than car traffic. So for high-density living, car traffic must necessarily be down-prioritized in favor of higher-density and less polluting traffic, namely cycling and public transit, both of which work best in cities. Roads and parking lots simply take up way too much space that could be used for parks, homes, shopping streets and people instead. Conversely, it is hard to make public transit work efficiently in rural areas, and cycling 10-15km between towns for social activities (in all kinds of weather) is not acceptable to most people. Electric bicycles mitigate this somewhat, but in most less densely populated areas, cars still make a lot of sense for most people. I'm a city person, so I favor cycling and public transit, and I would love to see the center of Copenhagen completely closed off to personal car traffic, only allowing delivery drivers and other professionals with a legitimate need to drive through the city center. I don't condone violent activism or similar methods, nor do I condone breaking traffic laws through methods like Critical Mass and the like. The "critical mass" I want is simply for there to be so many cyclists in traffic that they cannot be ignored or marginalized. I would also never try to ban cars in other less-densely populated places, because that's simply not realistic. At least not yet, not without some major revolution in living conditions or public transit feasibility. At some point, we have to realize just how ridiculously wasteful personal car traffic really is, and do something major to disrupt it. I don't think self-driving cars are the answer.
smelendez 8y ago
I think you're right, and it's frustrating. I'm pretty much neutral: I'm a licensed driver, and I've cycled to work in the past, but right now I don't have a bike or a car. I saw a discussion on a local forum recently where cyclists and motorists just refused to accept that both camps use their vehicles as transportation. Drivers acted like cyclists were just silly kids, despite some being eligible for Social Security, and cyclists acted like drivers were robber barons having their chauffeurs mow down poor people.
holstvoogd 8y ago
I've seen it change too. When I was younger, I visited Vienna yearly and there the attitude has changed I feel. 15-20 years back you had better stay on the sidewalk or risk being cut off etc by cars, but now it seems they love their cyclists. On a side-note: cyclist in Berlin are very annoying they park their bike in front of you at EVERY traffic light and are then exceedingly slow to get moving again. Now that I think about it, it might just be that the attitude changes with the introduction of cycling lanes to keep cars and bikes separated
- Balero 8y ago
  In the UK there is a specific area at the front (which cars will often decide to stop in) just for bikes to stop, called a bike box. I believe it is safer for them to be out in front rather than pushed to a side, or caught between cars.[0] In my experience, in an urban environment, it doesn't matter how fast you get moving again, there's another traffic light right ahead [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line
  - Tomte 8y ago
    We have that, too. And I don‘t really understand it. I mean, bikes accelerate much slower. So what realistically happens is that bikes weasel through cars and the right curb to the front, distribute themselves over the whole width of the lane. And when they get green they... have to go over to the right side again (single-file!) and are being overtaken (usually with little room) by all the cars. I‘ve just read the article you linked, and the HGV aspect is a good one. But in my home town, those bike boxes aren‘t on streets with real goods traffic, but on residential streets.
    - WkndTriathlete 8y ago
      The main problem with cycling is that some cyclists are safer in the road while others are safer off of the road. I happen to live in an area with wide (car width+ shoulders) so most of the time I'm there. However, there are a handful of left turns I make that result in me being in the vehicle left-turn lane at the signal lights. When the green arrow shows I'm lights-out sprinting through the intersection so I'm not holding up vehicle traffic. Cyclists can actually accelerate much faster than vehicles over the first couple of seconds and it's only 5 seconds or less through an intersection. Having said that, my sprint power from a dead stop is from 6 - 15 watts / kg, depending on my motivation level. If someone is coming away from a dead stop at a lower power-to-weight ratio they should probably not be in the road since they will unnecessarily hold up traffic.
michaelcampbell 8y ago
There's a few things going on that I see (in the US), and probably many I don't. * Most US roads are not bicycle ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well. * Cyclists have been given a right to be on these roads, which can't safely handle them, by legislation. * Having them there does impede traffic that the road WAS designed for. * The US culture has devolved lately into a "my rights" based one. * Both the car drivers who have historical precedent with "rights to be there" and the cyclists with the newfound legislative "right to be there" willfully fail to recognize the rights of the other. * Both sets of drivers blame the other for the lack of adherence to safety and traffic laws. Both are correct.
- dionidium 8y ago
  > Most US roads are not bicycle ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well. This is true, but many of the roads in my hometown that people insist were "built for cars" predate the automobile, which is just to say that they can be (and have been) changed to support whatever we want them to support.
  - michaelcampbell 8y ago
    This is also true, and they DON'T currently support cars + bicycles. That they can be made to do so is interesting, but irrelevant to the current situation.
    - dionidium 8y ago
      It's relevant in countering the assertion that roads were built for cars. A lot of roads were built for horses, but nobody thinks that's a compelling argument for, well, anything.
  - gbrown 8y ago
    As an interesting side note, in my area "road diets" were recently proposed, turning a four lane road into 2+turning lane+bike lanes. The planners had data indicating that this would lead to less congestion and higher safety... and many people lost their minds in fury at the idea of giving up lanes to cyclists.
wolfgke 8y ago
> It seems like a regional thing though. In many European and Asian countries there may be animosity between some cyclists and some drivers of cars, but not the extreme polarisation seen in American (perhaps Australian and a few other countries too?) communities. As a German, I say: you hang around with the "wrong" cyclists and motorists to perceive the strong polarization. I know people of the more militant kind from both sides. Let me tell you: these cyclists typically know the exact subtle details of the road traffic regulations (Straßenverkehrsordnung) much better than most motorists (who had to do an exam about this topic to get their driving license). This is also very necessary, since lots of motorists feel so much entitled and do not actually know the laws. In this case only knowing the law exactly helps and if discussions are futile (they often are), the only thing that you can do is to file a criminal charge against the motorist. To give my private opinion (after having heard lots of arguments from both sides): The fact that there exist obligatory driving licences is a lot at fault for all these escalations. Their mere existence leads to a lot of the entitlement of the motorists ("I had to take the driving exam and learn a lot about traffic laws before, while the cyclists did not. So the motorists feel 'more entitled to know what is right and wrong in traffic'").

AmericanChopper 8y ago

Having lived in Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila, I can tell you that getting angry at cyclists wouldn’t make much sense. The roads are complete chaos in all those places, everything on the road is a deadly hazard. The roads where I live now are a lot more orderly, but cyclists get a free pass in a lot of ways. You’ll get a ticket for passing within 5 feet of a cyclist, so you better hope they’re a fast cyclist when you get stuck behind one. I also see them run reds frequently and ride across pedestrian crossings. For a group that makes up about 1% of commuters, they manage to make a disproportionate nuisance of themselves. I’m not an anti-cycling nut, but it’s not hard to see where the frustration comes from.

Tomte 8y ago

Depends. If you happen to come across extremist cyclists and at the same time oblivious or even arrogant car drivers, it can get out of hand real quick in Germany, as well. There is lots of hatred on both sides. Drivers see cyclist running a red light and generalize about those criminal cyclists. Cyclists take an idea like Critical Mass that was originally supposed to be a demonstration, a traffic-political statement, and don‘t even care about traffic policy anymore, but openly talk about how to disrupt car traffic the most so those „carholes“ get the traffic jam they deserve. It‘s just fun to them, a bit of trolling. I don‘t see the relationship improve, unless many more „common“ people use the bike. Then they would have much more understanding for the other side when driving a car, and the bike extremists would vanish in the mass as statistical noise.

Fricken 8y ago
What little legitimacy cyclists have established for themselves was accomplished by being pushy, not by being pushovers. With cars it was the same, they secured their rights to the road by running people over back in the early days, which makes critical mass look pretty quaint by comparison.
- Tomte 8y ago
  Breaking law doesn‘t give you legitimacy. Injuring pedestrians doesn‘t give you legitimacy, either. You simply illustrate the extremist biker that will achieve nothing but more hatred from all other participants in traffic. That‘s why I‘m hoping for more „casual“ bikers who don‘t see the war on the street as their focal point of life.
  - Fricken 8y ago
    You're uttering mindless platitudes without anything to back it up. Look at how Trump, or Uber got their way. It certainly wasn't by taking the advice of people who disagree with them. And sure, they're hated, but they've proven that their tolerance for hate has more endurance than the hate people have to dish out on them. The 'extremist' cyclists paved the way for the more casual cyclists by not giving up.
    - dang 8y ago
      We've warned you before that posting uncivilly will get you banned here. Please don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - francisofascii 8y ago
    Not disagreeing, but it can go both ways. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and broke the law, I'm sure that created some angry white hatred, but in the end advanced equal rights for African Americans.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Unfortunately there is a lot of anti-cyclist sentiment going on, and it seems to have been increasing over the last decade or so. From my perspective in Copenhagen -- one of the foremost cycling cities in the world -- I think this is happening because policies are increasingly being enacted to favor cyclists and public transit. A lot of road improvements have favored bicycle lanes, often by decreasing the number of lanes available for cars, or by making a lot of streets one-way only for cars. Some car drivers see these as direct attacks on their chosen mode of transportation, or even their lifestyle as a whole. I see this as a necessary evil. You cannot improve conditions for one type of transport beyond a certain point, without also making conditions worse for other types of transport. Cycling, walking and public transit go very well hand-in-hand, but personal car traffic doesn't really mesh that well with anything other than car traffic. So for high-density living, car traffic must necessarily be down-prioritized in favor of higher-density and less polluting traffic, namely cycling and public transit, both of which work best in cities. Roads and parking lots simply take up way too much space that could be used for parks, homes, shopping streets and people instead. Conversely, it is hard to make public transit work efficiently in rural areas, and cycling 10-15km between towns for social activities (in all kinds of weather) is not acceptable to most people. Electric bicycles mitigate this somewhat, but in most less densely populated areas, cars still make a lot of sense for most people. I'm a city person, so I favor cycling and public transit, and I would love to see the center of Copenhagen completely closed off to personal car traffic, only allowing delivery drivers and other professionals with a legitimate need to drive through the city center. I don't condone violent activism or similar methods, nor do I condone breaking traffic laws through methods like Critical Mass and the like. The "critical mass" I want is simply for there to be so many cyclists in traffic that they cannot be ignored or marginalized. I would also never try to ban cars in other less-densely populated places, because that's simply not realistic. At least not yet, not without some major revolution in living conditions or public transit feasibility. At some point, we have to realize just how ridiculously wasteful personal car traffic really is, and do something major to disrupt it. I don't think self-driving cars are the answer.

smelendez 8y ago

I think you're right, and it's frustrating. I'm pretty much neutral: I'm a licensed driver, and I've cycled to work in the past, but right now I don't have a bike or a car. I saw a discussion on a local forum recently where cyclists and motorists just refused to accept that both camps use their vehicles as transportation. Drivers acted like cyclists were just silly kids, despite some being eligible for Social Security, and cyclists acted like drivers were robber barons having their chauffeurs mow down poor people.

holstvoogd 8y ago

I've seen it change too. When I was younger, I visited Vienna yearly and there the attitude has changed I feel. 15-20 years back you had better stay on the sidewalk or risk being cut off etc by cars, but now it seems they love their cyclists. On a side-note: cyclist in Berlin are very annoying they park their bike in front of you at EVERY traffic light and are then exceedingly slow to get moving again. Now that I think about it, it might just be that the attitude changes with the introduction of cycling lanes to keep cars and bikes separated

Balero 8y ago
In the UK there is a specific area at the front (which cars will often decide to stop in) just for bikes to stop, called a bike box. I believe it is safer for them to be out in front rather than pushed to a side, or caught between cars.[0] In my experience, in an urban environment, it doesn't matter how fast you get moving again, there's another traffic light right ahead [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line
- Tomte 8y ago
  We have that, too. And I don‘t really understand it. I mean, bikes accelerate much slower. So what realistically happens is that bikes weasel through cars and the right curb to the front, distribute themselves over the whole width of the lane. And when they get green they... have to go over to the right side again (single-file!) and are being overtaken (usually with little room) by all the cars. I‘ve just read the article you linked, and the HGV aspect is a good one. But in my home town, those bike boxes aren‘t on streets with real goods traffic, but on residential streets.
  - WkndTriathlete 8y ago
    The main problem with cycling is that some cyclists are safer in the road while others are safer off of the road. I happen to live in an area with wide (car width+ shoulders) so most of the time I'm there. However, there are a handful of left turns I make that result in me being in the vehicle left-turn lane at the signal lights. When the green arrow shows I'm lights-out sprinting through the intersection so I'm not holding up vehicle traffic. Cyclists can actually accelerate much faster than vehicles over the first couple of seconds and it's only 5 seconds or less through an intersection. Having said that, my sprint power from a dead stop is from 6 - 15 watts / kg, depending on my motivation level. If someone is coming away from a dead stop at a lower power-to-weight ratio they should probably not be in the road since they will unnecessarily hold up traffic.

michaelcampbell 8y ago

There's a few things going on that I see (in the US), and probably many I don't. * Most US roads are not bicycle ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well. * Cyclists have been given a right to be on these roads, which can't safely handle them, by legislation. * Having them there does impede traffic that the road WAS designed for. * The US culture has devolved lately into a "my rights" based one. * Both the car drivers who have historical precedent with "rights to be there" and the cyclists with the newfound legislative "right to be there" willfully fail to recognize the rights of the other. * Both sets of drivers blame the other for the lack of adherence to safety and traffic laws. Both are correct.

dionidium 8y ago
> Most US roads are not bicycle ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well. This is true, but many of the roads in my hometown that people insist were "built for cars" predate the automobile, which is just to say that they can be (and have been) changed to support whatever we want them to support.
- michaelcampbell 8y ago
  This is also true, and they DON'T currently support cars + bicycles. That they can be made to do so is interesting, but irrelevant to the current situation.
  - dionidium 8y ago
    It's relevant in countering the assertion that roads were built for cars. A lot of roads were built for horses, but nobody thinks that's a compelling argument for, well, anything.
- gbrown 8y ago
  As an interesting side note, in my area "road diets" were recently proposed, turning a four lane road into 2+turning lane+bike lanes. The planners had data indicating that this would lead to less congestion and higher safety... and many people lost their minds in fury at the idea of giving up lanes to cyclists.

wolfgke 8y ago

> It seems like a regional thing though. In many European and Asian countries there may be animosity between some cyclists and some drivers of cars, but not the extreme polarisation seen in American (perhaps Australian and a few other countries too?) communities. As a German, I say: you hang around with the "wrong" cyclists and motorists to perceive the strong polarization. I know people of the more militant kind from both sides. Let me tell you: these cyclists typically know the exact subtle details of the road traffic regulations (Straßenverkehrsordnung) much better than most motorists (who had to do an exam about this topic to get their driving license). This is also very necessary, since lots of motorists feel so much entitled and do not actually know the laws. In this case only knowing the law exactly helps and if discussions are futile (they often are), the only thing that you can do is to file a criminal charge against the motorist. To give my private opinion (after having heard lots of arguments from both sides): The fact that there exist obligatory driving licences is a lot at fault for all these escalations. Their mere existence leads to a lot of the entitlement of the motorists ("I had to take the driving exam and learn a lot about traffic laws before, while the cyclists did not. So the motorists feel 'more entitled to know what is right and wrong in traffic'").