4 ms·
>>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
by moate 8y ago
>>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.
- dfxm12 8y agoAs someone from the US, this phrasing confused me. "Bikers" has a much more common meaning here. I'm from the US and I disagree. Maybe in your community that's the more common meaning, but you can't extrapolate that to the entire country. Context clues should make it obvious what I mean anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRnxEZJCey4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRnxEZJCey4 So you think we dehumanize people we judge to be criminals? That would be unfortunate, if true. Sure, it might be reasonable to dehumanize the perpetrators of some heinous acts (serial murder being just one example), but weaving between lanes (which isn't even illegal everywhere to my knowledge) falls way short of that.
- kelnos 8y ago> So you think we dehumanize people we judge to be criminals? Yes. I mean, that's pretty much what the article posted here is about. And this extends to other things that also fall far short of heinous acts: people in the US jailed for minor drug offenses are similarly dehumanized by many people in the "war on drugs" crowd.