17 ms·

A Vicious Cycle: The Dangerous Dehumanisation of Cyclists

117 points by pharmakom 5y ago

H8crilA 5y ago
What? I am sometimes pissed at cyclists, but to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Unfortunately human beings do have many significant cognitive deficiencies, some of which have severe impacts on those around them.
- bertil 5y ago
  Why are you pissed at them for? Using the same road as you?
  - danmur 5y ago
    Doing things that are annoying, just like every other class of human? Exactly the same way cyclists get pissed at drivers, or pedestrians, or other cyclists.
    - bertil 5y ago
      Cyclists get pissed at drivers because they dehumanise them, threaten and murder them. I don’t think that’s the problem that drivers have with cyclists.
  - sampo 5y ago
    > Why are you pissed at them for? Just like some car drivers feel entitled to "own" the road and feel that if they hit a cyclist, it was the cyclist at fault, also some cyclists feel entitled to "own" the shared pedestrian and cycle paths, and occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame the pedestrians.
    - drran 5y ago
      Even pedestrians occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame pedestrians. Very high maneuverability makes pedestrians unpredictable. The only way to avoid a collision with a pedestrian is to keep distance between you and a pedestrian, or accept that they will step right in front of your bike sometimes, or hit you on the side, when you're passing them slowly, or bump into you, when you're standing or walking with a bicycle. When on foots, I can avoid a collision with another pedestrian easily, but when I'm on a bike, I cannot do that, even when I drive at pedestrian speed.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved, while obviously mistaking a public road for a sports arena (as evidenced by the outfit), while there is a perfectly good bike lane ten meters to the right of them. No sane person hates the random civilian cyclist who rides inner-city to his place of work, on bike lanes where available, and who acts in a predictable manner (give hand signs when making a turn, stopping when the traffic lights say so, ...). But those wannabe-Lance-Armstrongs on the country road, I can understand how they can make someone's blood boil. Even worse when they do everything to be as invisible as possible (for example, wearing mostly black).
    - _Wintermute 5y ago
      > Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved Sounds like it's you with the heavy fast moving object that's creating the danger in that situation.
      - HPsquared 5y ago
        It's like a person walking on train tracks - the train is the big, dangerous fast-moving thing, but the danger comes from mixing the two. You expect to see trains on a train track, indeed they can't go anywhere else. Pedestrians should walk on the pavement, not the train track. That's the "pro-car / anti-bike" angle, I think. If cars had been invented first, it would probably be illegal to ride bikes on the road. They basically were grandfathered-in.
      - charcircuit 5y ago
        If a car went 10 mph on a 50 mph road I would be just as mad as if it was a biker.
    - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
      > a perfectly good bike lane Let's see it. Street View link, please? You'd be amazed how inconvenient or dangerous many "perfectly good bike lanes" turn out to be.
- moritonal 5y ago
  It's been shown often that people are very capable of thinking of others as not human. Now wrap them in a nice metal bubble (car), and put the other human into a weird pose on a metal frame (bike) and the division is even easier. I'd then also imagine it's a coping mechanism for the guilt/stress drivers face worrying about cyclists, given the difference of damage in a crash, so they think of the cyclists as "a cyclist who decided to ride up next to me" rather than "a human on a bike trying to get to work".
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  ...to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency. I mean, it is one the world has been plagued with. You can find past examples in constitutions viewing slaves as lesser and forbidding Jewish folks from a country. In modern times - at least in the US - folks use it for immigrants and prisoners and to a lesser extent, poor people. And sure, a deficiency, but I'm pretty sure it is one folks choose part of the time. Admittedly, however, I think what the article refers to is kind of a mental shortcut folks do unknowingly - one of those things that usually just helps us process the world around us. A car isn't full of people, it is a thing. A bike is a mini car on wheels. Walking folks, even with a bike, are people, though.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  “The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.” ― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
Nemrod67 5y ago
We're never getting back all the calories burned for this, our civilization peaked in the year 2000 i'm afraid
yodelshady 5y ago
Note that the "cockroaches" slur originated from Queensland police: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/police-liken-cyclists-to-cockroaches-online-20141104-11gwmb.html https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/police-... I won't be giving QL my tourist money in a hurry.
sdevonoes 5y ago
In my limited experience with people on wheels: - cars, motorbikes: always stop to let you pass. They will even say sorry if they look as if they didn't let us pass in a crosswalk - cyclists, scooters: never stop. You are the one who has to stop, and if you don't do that they look at you as if you need to say sorry to them
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  This is so far from my experience in every single city I've ever lived in or visited across several continents I'm not sure how you have possibly arrived at this experience. In which city do cars and motorbikes always stop to let you pass? Again, I cannot state how fundamentally foreign this is to me. I can think of only a few cities (which I haven't visited) for which this may be true, and that's limited to a very select number of countries.
  - msk-lywenn 5y ago
    In Portugal they do stop. That's the only place on earth I've witnessed it. It's... huh... surprisingly weird to, for example, stop on the sidewalk waiting for someone to then notice all the cars stopping for no apparent reason and then only noticing you're in front of a pedestrian crossing. Oops. They sometimes even go as far as to brake so hard when seeing a pedestrian that they cause an accident. I witnessed that one at least twice! Once three cars smashed into each other...
  - NoboruWataya 5y ago
    It accords with my experience of multiple big cities. The comment you're responding to mentioned "crosswalk" which I take to mean a zebra/pedestrian crossing. Cars and motorcycles do stop at them, as a rule, if only because if they don't stop and something bad happens they are in serious trouble. Some cyclists stop, many don't.
    - bigDinosaur 5y ago
      My experience has been that most people stop, but certainly not all. If they always stopped you would never have to look both ways before crossing at a zebra crossing - but doing so has literally probably saved me from being killed or severely injured multiple times. Certainly there's no place I've been where it's only cyclists who are poorly behaved.
KaiserPro 5y ago
Depends on where you are in the world. the Netherlands, this doesn't apply. Cyclists might be dicks (especially in amsterdam) but everyone cycles. In the UK in the big cities, there tends to be lots of cycling. Adherence to the rules of red lights is lax amongst <15% of cyclist. However they are the obnoxious noisy shites whom everyone hates. (fellow cyclists included) Again, not subhuman, but classic dickheads. In the US(well NYC), from the time I lived there, cyclists are either raging hippies, or aggressive couriers. On the westcoast it was more of a lifestyle choice.
- nicbou 5y ago
  > but everyone cycles This is probably the key. A cyclist behind the wheel will usually show some consideration for other cyclists. Same for motorcyclists. Besides, there are just more cyclists in Europe in general. Drivers are used to seeing them, and driver training accounts for them. It's easy to hate the single cyclist on your commute, but when there are hundreds of them, you must accept their existence.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  If you cycle enough you'll know that often red lights are silly for bicycles. Bicycles shouldn't be treated like cars. They are better. In particular, smaller, more nimble and less dangerous. I'm a big fan of the "Idaho stop". Essentially it "downgrades" the meaning of stop signs and red lights for cyclists, turning a red light into a stop and a stop into a give way. It makes a lot of sense. Traffic lights and other complications are there because cars are dangerous. People using other modes shouldn't be forced to take the same responsibility as a car driver.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    Red lights are sometimes silly for cars too. And sometimes they are upgraded with sensors that make them automatically go green when you approach an empty intersection, making them a little less silly. They don't always work well; in my area some sensors seem to trigger too late, resulting in unnecessary braking, and others trigger too early and might encourage you to speed up for the intersection to avoid getting a yellow or even red just before you enter. Sometimes they give a green for the go-straight lane just when you're switching to the turn lane, which stays red even though there's no traffic.. One of my favorite solutions is simply turning the lights off altogether when there's not much traffic. They do that at quite a few intersections here.
Reason077 5y ago
Could there be something alien and unnatural about cycling that triggers a visceral response in our brains resulting in fear, anger, and aggression? In New Zealand and Australia there is a bird called the Magpie. During their nesting season in the spring, they sometimes get very aggressive towards cyclists. It's not unusual for them to swoop down and hit at you from behind with their claws. There are even cases of cyclists being killed by Magpies after being knocked off their bikes. But in my experience, if a Magpie is swooping you, the best way to make it stop is to get off your bike! As soon as the bird sees you on your feet and pushing your bike, they will calm down and back off. I've also heard of bulls in farmer's fields behaving the same way - aggressive towards someone on a bike, but calming down when you're pushing it. Could human brains be similar, especially for those not used to seeing cyclists so often?
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  > Could there be something alien and unnatural about cycling that triggers a visceral response in our brains resulting in fear, anger, and aggression? I have to say that in a long life, I've heard a lot of arguments by drivers against bikes, but never one as extreme as this one! "Bikes are alien and unnatural and trigger fear, anger and aggression [and therefore it's perfectly natural that drivers try to deliberately kill cyclists as in this article]" > especially for those not used to seeing cyclists so often? 90% of Australians live in cities, where they see cyclists every single day.
- tokai 5y ago
  Lots a animals become agitated by humans in contraptions that they haven't experienced a lot. I once talked with a wheelchair-bound man that told me that it is very common for dogs to bark at people in wheelchairs if the dog hasn't see that before. Most animals and especially wild animals are just neophobic, including humans.
  - nicbou 5y ago
    Yep. Stray dogs hate my motorcycle.
- Earw0rm 5y ago
Terry_Roll 5y ago
I think driving a vehicle is like strapping yourself into a mobile suit of armour, thrown in exposure to lots of red tail lights and you have the perfect recipe for seeing red. The bad press for cyclists in some countries dont help, probably some oil company kickback or someone who relies on tax revenues and more can then be explained.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Also doesn't help how much newspapers rely on car dealerships and manufacturers for advertising, or what percentage of radio listeners are driving while they listen.
- soneil 5y ago
  I honestly think cars are our "sacred cows". That's why we're not talking about people inconveniencing people, we're talking about bicycles inconveniencing cars. We're not talking about people's rights, we're talking about cars' rights. This is of course tongue-in-cheek, but do watch how we word this - surprisingly few people talk about drivers, most talk about cars. Even road rage makes a lot more sense when you realise we're rushing to defend the honour of our sacred cow. And it's so deeply cultural, not driving is like being "culturally catholic" - you might not be practicing, but you've been raised in it and accept it as the default. So we won't ask why cars have some god-given right over all other road users. That's just a given, that's how the west works. Instead we ask why those lesser road users dare inconvenience them, and how we can get those lycra-wrapped vegans out the way of our fire-breathing demigods. And within this terrible analogy, the Dutch are of course heathen. We accept that they've somehow made being godless work, but we won't even try to wrap our heads around how.
renewiltord 5y ago
CalRobert 5y ago
I cycled to work in LA for a year and I'd be there getting ready for standup helmet-in-hand listening to coworkers joke about murdering me. Nevermind these same people bitched about traffic all the time and seemed angry that I got to work in about the same time cycling or driving (405 during rush hour. vs riding down the beach path, Santa Monica to El Segundo). Imagine if I joked about shooting my coworkers - how would that go?
- Lio 5y ago
  I have cameras built into the lights on my bike, front and rear plus a second light with radar on the back. When I told my family this my, normally quite friendly, brother-in-law asked why. I told him that it's not unusual to be threatened by drivers when cycling. Anything from close passes that make you jump to a passenger leaning out trying to put a plastic bag over my head. He got quite angry and proceeded to tell me that cyclists "bring it on themselves and deserve what's coming to them" ...and we get on. If I suggested waving a baseball bat at strangers on the street he'd rightly think I was mental but apparently if you're on a bike you're fair game. It's not that unusual for randos I meet socially to say something like "lycra-clad MEN!, it's always men![1], need to get off the road and pay road tax![2], and stop riding through red lights[3] and wear NORMAL clothes![4]" I could argue with all of that or call them an asshole but what's the point? It's best not to say anything. It's not about truth or statistics it's about othering an out-group, cyclists and not feeling bad when you scare or hurt them. 1. I ride with lots of women in my bike club. They get just as much hassle but there's generally less kudos at parties in bragging that you tailgated the shit out of a lone woman because she was wearing tight clothes. 2. Road tax in the UK was abolished in 1937. No one here has to pay it and like most cyclists I also have a car. 3. As a point of pride I never ride through a red light but I do see drivers tailgate through red lights or on the wrong side of the road every single day. 4. If I'm going to get sweaty why wouldn't I wear comfortable kit? It's not like I wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to go swimming either.
  - nmeofthestate 5y ago
    As a cyclist in Scotland who's never had any trouble on the road, I was going to sympathise with your having to put up with a toxic culture in your country. But then I saw your in the UK!
nonrandomstring 5y ago
Go along the canal tow path between Hackney and Islington if you want to see humanity at its lowest :) You'll find; Walking Pedestrians Runners Cyclists Mums with buggies Latte drinking hipsters You could devise a Rock-Paper or Top Trumps type game where each has their own agility, velocity, hit-power, hated outgroups, allies, special powers and so on. The most aggressive by far are runners. They literally hate all other groups and will deliberately elbow you in the ribs or push aside anything that gets between them and the new high-score target time. Buggy mums have a special power of vulnerability, second only to wheelchair users that can, like Moses, part the sea of apologising docile bodies (Everyone in London is constantly "sorry", simply for existing and being in other people's way. But "sorry" is actually a very subtle and British form of "Fuck you"). Cyclists vary between extremely polite and conscientious folks who gently ring their bells and pass single-file in groups... to absolute assholes. How expensive their bikes are more or less directly correlates with abusive behaviour. The optimal bike in London costs about 50 quid and is a fashion item that demonstrates you have nothing to prove. Anyone on a £400 mountain bike is almost certainly a total tosser. Pedestrians, necks craned, heads down in their smartphones. earbuds blocking out any warning shouts or cyclists bells, zig-zag across the path while reading Facebook or scrolling on whatever dumb new app they have. And you don't need to be fast moving and dangerous to cause chaos. Hipsters literally sit in the path, man-spreading their legs across the lane, daring anyone to interrupt their beard-stroking and spill their latte. On a good day this is all a cosmopolitan good natured jossle. On bad day things get violent and people get thrown in the canal. The point is, that heterogeneous users in crowded transit paths don't work well together. Amsterdam is another good example, but has a different dynamic once you mix-in ten-ton trams. Car drivers are just one more level of removal. With cars on the roads it's life and death, and scores of cyclists are killed every year in London. We recently changed the Highway Code in the UK to give pedestrians (and cyclists) far higher priority over cars. But, like using phones while driving, nobody pays the least attention, and laws are barely enforced in Britain anyway, which is a good and bad thing.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  > But "sorry" is actually a very subtle and British form of "Fuck you" No it's not. It not actually a heartfelt apology, but it's most certainly not an FU either.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blarg1 5y ago
Here in Australia, I was once riding down a main road, nearly keeping up with the few cars on the road, someone drove past me and blasted the horn for about 10 seconds. Don't know what their problem was.
- sammyjoe72 5y ago
  Here in Australia, I was riding to work one morning, and I filtered through to the front of the grid at a red light. I could hear the passenger in the car to my right abusing me. When the light went green, I took off, and I heard the car come up beside me… they matched my speed, pulled in close, and the passenger opened is car door into me in an attempt to knock me off. I didn’t come off, and followed them to get the number plate. Went to the police station, and lodged the complaint. They were actually going to charge the passenger and driver with attempted murder. Turned out the number plate hadn’t been registered in 14 years. I said “that’s weird, why would they be driving around with unregistered plates” and the cops response was dry: “to steal petrol” Amazing.
gitowiec 5y ago
When I'm behind the wheel I hate cyclists. Not all of them, just the part that behaves like they take part in some Olympics challenge. The same is when I ride a bike. I still hate them, because they are a threat. I am afraid to share road with such people. They do not slow down, they squeeze in where there's not enough room. I'm stressed when riding a bike that I get into awful accident. And I'm stressed when riding my car that I will get someone into hospital and I will have to take responsibility of someone dumbness
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
urthor 5y ago
Pretty sure it's just the red light jumpers. Stick a QR code on the front of the bikes, and put some AI cameras at every traffic light. Problem, solved.
- zachrip 5y ago
  If cyclists stop running red lights, people will stop running them over? Am I understanding you correctly?
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  There is plenty of evidence that cyclists obey the rules of the road more than car drivers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists-break-far-fewer-road-rules-than-motorists-finds-new-video-study/#638693ba4bfa https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists... https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-break-traffic-laws-any-more-than-drivers-do/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-b...
pmontra 5y ago
I think it depends of how many people routinely use a bicycle or have used one. Once you're a cyclist you don't bitch too much at other cyclists when you're driving a car. I do about 15-20k km driving a car per year and 6-7k on a bicycle. I tend to know what to do not to piss off cyclists or car drivers.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Might also depend on how many people routinely use a car. I've seen many comments, here and elsewhere, from the "I never drive [but have other people drive for me]" set, that show a startling ignorance of what's reasonable to expect of drivers. "Never take your eyes off the road" - what, not to check my rear or side mirrors, read a sign, see whether a pedestrian is about to step off the curb, find the defrost button so I don't lose visibility? Some driving is necessary and some is not, but cyclists and pedestrians acting unpredictably makes 100% safety impossible in both cases. People who regularly do both tend to be pretty reasonable about accommodating each other. People who only do one, either way, not so much.
Gareth321 5y ago
I have a unique perspective here, having lived in both Australia and a modern European country with AMAZING cycling infrastructure. Bikes should not share the same spaces as pedestrians OR cars. Period. If they must share, bikes are much closer to pedestrians than cars, yet we ask them to share the road with cars. These modes of transport are VASTLY different, and of course lead to all kinds of animosity between these groups. Australia is notorious for underfunding and ignoring anything resembling cycling infrastructure. Cyclists believe they're "motor vehicles," and indeed, under many statues, they are legally classed as such. The problem is, when there is a 20 car queue stuck behind two cyclists riding next to each other, cruising along at 30kph in a 100kph zone (yes, this actually happens, often), this just not efficient use of the road. The answer is not "teach drivers to be okay with driving at 30kph everywhere." That's silly and I'm tired of this canard. The answer is of course better infrastructure. Hard barriers between cyclists and motorists, and preferably pedestrians too. The only reason this problem exists is apathy and greed. It's often the motorists most impacted by slow and dangerous cyclists who are least willing to increase their taxes to solve this problem.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  It takes a long time to build the right infrastructure, the Dutch have been doing it for forty years and they aren't finished yet.
  - llampx 5y ago
    I could say the same about roads and highways, given that long stretches of the Autobahn are seemingly always in construction and/or certain stretches have been in construction for years. When you're "done" with infrastructure you tend to get spectacular collapses.
    - mlatu 5y ago
      Autobahn? I think you mean Gemany, the other person was talking about the Dutch (Netherlands)
DrBazza 5y ago
The Daily Mail, in the UK, in particular has some weird anti-cyclist obsession. The recent changes to the Highway Code are just explicit statements about what cyclists and pedestrians can do (edit - actually what cars should do with respect to pedestrians), whereas before it was implicit - if a pedestrian steps out into the road, would you continue to drive and run them over? Of course not. That's now explicitly stated that the pedestrian has right of way. Similarly with cyclists moving to the middle of a lane for safety, it's now explicit in the highway code. Yet, the Daily Mail have made it out like it's a war and the end of civilization as we know it. It's both sad and hilarious reading their faux-rage about lanes being taken out in London for cyclists which are full of far more people cycling at 9am and 5pm than the number of people sat in stationary cars in the adjacent lane (Victoria Embankment). And then taking a picture of the cycle lane on a Sunday, publishing it, and claiming 'it's barely used'.
- maffydub 5y ago
  I understood the changes to the Highway Code differently (although could be wrong). My understanding was that previously there were various situations where pedestrians did not have right of way and so, if there were cars coming, should not step into the road. That's not to say that if they did, cars could just run them down. Now, the pedestrian has right if way, and so is right to step into the road. Have I misunderstood?
  - globular-toast 5y ago
    Priority, not right of way. There's a big difference. Everyone has right of way to on the public highway at all times. In England and Wales the public has right of way on byways, bridleways and footpaths too (although there are restrictions on what type of vehicle is allowed, if any). In Scotland the public has right of way everywhere by non-motorised means. Your right of way never trumps someone else's right of way, nor does it trump someone else's right to live. Priority is a completely different concept. When you give way, you are not losing your right of way. You are simply waiting for your turn. Priority is a simple rule to make sure everyone can exercise their right of way fairly and safely. I really wish people would think about what they are saying. As a walker in England/Wales, you don't take right of way for granted.
maffydub 5y ago
I don't drive or cycle (just a pedestrian) and definitely don't want to "dehumanize" cyclists, but I do find it scary (at least here in London) how rarely cyclists follow the Highway Code. In particular, it is very common to see cyclists running red lights or cycling the wrong way down one-way streets. I guess since there's no registration, it's very unlikely cyclists would be penalised for this.
- ndsipa_pomu 5y ago
  I think that cyclists running red lights is a symptom that most crossings and junctions are designed primarily for motor vehicles. Some countries modify traffic laws for cyclists such as the Idaho Stop and Paris has also made changes so that red lights can be treated as Give Way/Yield. However that does not excuse cyclists that endanger pedestrians. One-way streets are also seldom designed to take into account cyclists and again, they're designed for large motor vehicles. Here in the UK, there are lots of one-way streets that have a specific cycle lane to go the wrong way, but it's a lottery as to whether local councils have bothered to examine the one-ways.
- unglaublich 5y ago
  ", but". That's because that highway code was designed for huge and heavy cars that need lots of time and space to come to a stop and that pose a danger for other road users. Not for agile and light cyclists. The rules just do not make a lot of sense for cyclists. E.g., in the Netherlands there are traffic lights for cyclists. They turn green for all 4 directions simultaneously, for only a few seconds. That's enough to have tens, sometimes hundreds of cyclists cross a road, WITHOUT any collision or danger. Cars are just too big and heavy for most urban areas. They belong on _highways_ indeed.
  - maffydub 5y ago
    I'd be happy with the Highway Code being updated, or with other provision being made for cyclists, but it sounds like you're suggesting cyclists should just ignore the rules? The trouble with that is that by not following the rules, it's harder for other road users (in particular pedestrians) to predict what they're going to do. Even though bikes are much lighter than cars, I'd prefer not to be hot by either!
TomSwirly 5y ago
I lived in Canada for ten years. I biked every day. However, during that time Canada's gold medal cyclist was paralyzed by being hit by a garbage truck whose driver had been deliberately trying to scare the cyclist repeatedly (to the point he'd called the cops) and yet got off entirely. I moved to New York City and I stopped cycling almost immediately. Vacillating between anxiety, terror and rage was not good for me. Twenty years later I bought a bike, and a month later give it to my neighbor - even with a few bike paths, it was just as bad. Thirty years after I had come to NYC, I moved to the Netherlands. And now I bike absolutely everywhere. Cars treat bikes like they are gold. Several times, cars have hard-braked because they suddenly noticed me, even though I wasn't in danger. Every single car that stops for me here gets a smile and a wave, because I so, so, so appreciate being able to bike again, and being treated like my life has value.
fxtentacle 5y ago
I bicycle a lot more than I drive. But I have to say, some of my fellow cyclists are really obnoxious assholes. Like driving 2 next to each other with 20km/h in a 100km/h area. Of course all the cars that have to wait for them are going to be pissed. And especially so if those morons drive on the road even when there's a perfectly workable dedicated bike lane next to the road. And why is it that elderly men who drive super slowly always feel the need to dress up in neon-colored skin-tight pants? One the one hand, I believe car drivers are somewhat rational in hating cyclists, because 10-20% of them really are assholes. On the other hand, I am scared that their reaction to asshole bicycle drivers also affects my own bicycling safety.
- stefan_ 5y ago
  What's your deal with what some people wear to exercise? Is that a fetish or something of yours?
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    Well, the article is about "dehumanisation of cyclists". I would expect that it is a lot easier to dehumanize people that look really different from anyone else. If most friendly bicycle drivers wear regular clothing and most entitled bicycle drivers wear neon pink, over time car drivers will come to expect a certain behavior just based on looks alone.
    - mvc 5y ago
      > I would expect that it is a lot easier to dehumanize people that look really different from anyone else I wonder when this has ever got us into trouble as a society before. Maybe check yourself if you find yourself experiencing feelings like this. "The gays" sometimes wear strange clothing just for fun. Do you think it's acceptable to dehumanize them too?
- unglaublich 5y ago
  You sound like you're a part of the problem. A rant about clothing, and motorists are "rational in hating cyclists", because "10-20% of them are assholes"?
Tade0 5y ago
I've found that I don't mind cyclists on the road at all - I just pass them at the nearest opportunity maintaining appropriate distance. I don't think I ever experienced any sort of dangerous situation caused by a cyclist while driving. I do hate having them in places meant for pedestrians though - I don't enjoy being passed at a few centimetre distance by something twice as fast as a jogger. I've been to places that impose restrictions on cycling in pedestrianized areas. Example: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.2688632,-2.9319466,3a,75y,288.58h,99.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sugsReryiuxdoojk6dP9-fw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.2688632,-2.9319466,3a,75y,28... The experience of walking is so much better there. Because of this I don't believe a truly walkable city should prioritize cycling. As with anything the asshole 5% ruin it for everyone else.
- hulitu 5y ago
  > I don't think I ever experienced any sort of dangerous situation caused by a cyclist while driving. Lucky you. Besides red light crossing and driving on the wrong side of the road the worst thing i experienced were cyclist in the night without any light or reflective clothing and a drunk cyclist who decided to suddenly change direction, both on country roads. Fortunately, exept some very hard breaking and cursing, nothing happened.
hackboyfly 5y ago
I live in Stockholm, a lot of cyclist and a lot of cars sharing small roads. I do not drive a car nor do I ride a bike. But TBH there is a bigger chance to get hit by a bike than a car here, and that's why I don't like them. There seems to be a limbo existing that is been taking advantage of by the cyclist here, they are neither a car nor a pedestrian. They seem to switch between "Move am a car" and "Mind me am a pedestrian", making it very hard to actually know what they are doing. At the same time cyclist (some) don't seem to follow any unwritten nor written rules about speed. They have no problem passing you as a pedestrian 20 km/h often by surprise cause you cant really hear them coming.
mkoryak 5y ago
I found one easy trick to make cars and pedestrians love me while a bike commute... I attached a fake pigeon to my helmet. Every commute was filled with smiles. Someone even made a spoof movie trailer about it once. I don't pigeonride as much now because of COVID. https://youtu.be/7pYRsLedthI https://youtu.be/7pYRsLedthI
rodolphoarruda 5y ago
Lance Armstrong once said he used to tell younger riders from his team to remove their cycling eye glasses (shades?) and helmet when approaching the finish line, so they could cross it with a bare face to the cameras, especially when winning the race. He said this would "re-humanize" the rider to the public, creating the opportunity for social projection, fame, success etc. In my own experience as a cyclist, whenever I see myself in a tense situation in the traffic, I remove my glasses, stick them in the helmet and look at drivers' faces in a non provocative way. It helps, I think, in most of the times. I think the driver regains the sensation that I'm not a thing/object, but a human.
D13Fd 5y ago
Just because you think they are sometimes jerks and may be dangerous doesn't mean you think they are not human. As a pedestrian and driver I've nearly been hit multiple times by cyclists (or scooter riders, who are similar) going full speed downhill on the sidewalk, or flying through crosswalks and straight through a red light, or going the wrong way on a one-way street. One time, as I stepped off the curb, a man on a bike nearly hit me as he flew the wrong way through a red light and across a busy intersection -- and he shouted at me as he did it. I'm of the view that riding bicycles is great, but that people on bikes need to obey the rules of whatever infrastructure they are using just like everyone else. I don't know why some people think as soon as they hop on a bike the rules no longer apply to them.
- davisoneee 5y ago
  The same way some people on cars don't give a shit about rules. Because people are selfish. The question is, how much are these people outliers? How much of it is you remembering and inflating the few bad situations, and forgetting the uneventful interactions? Compare this to how often people do shit in (much more dangerous) cars, that we just take for granted as regular road behaviour.
  - D13Fd 5y ago
    How often do I see cars blatantly ignore red lights and stop signs, drive on busy sidewalks, and go the wrong way on one-way streets? It's very uncommon. Bicycles here are much rarer, but when you see them, they are vastly more likely to be doing those things.
    - pharmakom 5y ago
      Next time you are walking past a junction take a peek at how many drivers are using their phones. A telltale sign is a delayed response when the signal changes green. That aside, I don’t understand why your experiences of bad cycling are relevant here.
jarek83 5y ago
I believe what happens is kind of a cycle feedback - a driver becomes pedestrian. That pedestrian is badly treaded by a cyclist - high speed passing sometimes ending up with a slight hit. Usually angry responses to any comment toward a cyclist. That pedestrian goes back into a car, and spots a cyclist using street that goes perfectly along an unoccupied path for cyclists. Sorry but, my personal experience with cyclist is that they seem to be worse towards pedestrians than drivers are towards them.
soneil 5y ago
It's a weird conversation that's always biassed by default. How about if we suggested that if cars can't share the roads with other users, we ban cars from the roads? Of course I'm not seriously advocating that, but the difference in the knee-jerk reaction is interesting. If we both have a right to be on the road, the question is just as valid either way around.
underwater 5y ago
It implies that the dehumanisation leads to aggressive behaviour, but it could just be correlation and not causation. How do we know that these people aren't just assholes? There are unfortunately a segment of Aussies who embrace the aggressive bogan stereotype, and seek out opportunities to insult and belittle other people.

117 points by pharmakom 5y ago

What? I am sometimes pissed at cyclists, but to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Unfortunately human beings do have many significant cognitive deficiencies, some of which have severe impacts on those around them.
bertil 5y ago
Why are you pissed at them for? Using the same road as you?
- danmur 5y ago
  Doing things that are annoying, just like every other class of human? Exactly the same way cyclists get pissed at drivers, or pedestrians, or other cyclists.
  - bertil 5y ago
    Cyclists get pissed at drivers because they dehumanise them, threaten and murder them. I don’t think that’s the problem that drivers have with cyclists.
- sampo 5y ago
  > Why are you pissed at them for? Just like some car drivers feel entitled to "own" the road and feel that if they hit a cyclist, it was the cyclist at fault, also some cyclists feel entitled to "own" the shared pedestrian and cycle paths, and occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame the pedestrians.
  - drran 5y ago
    Even pedestrians occasionally hit pedestrians and then blame pedestrians. Very high maneuverability makes pedestrians unpredictable. The only way to avoid a collision with a pedestrian is to keep distance between you and a pedestrian, or accept that they will step right in front of your bike sometimes, or hit you on the side, when you're passing them slowly, or bump into you, when you're standing or walking with a bicycle. When on foots, I can avoid a collision with another pedestrian easily, but when I'm on a bike, I cannot do that, even when I drive at pedestrian speed.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved, while obviously mistaking a public road for a sports arena (as evidenced by the outfit), while there is a perfectly good bike lane ten meters to the right of them. No sane person hates the random civilian cyclist who rides inner-city to his place of work, on bike lanes where available, and who acts in a predictable manner (give hand signs when making a turn, stopping when the traffic lights say so, ...). But those wannabe-Lance-Armstrongs on the country road, I can understand how they can make someone's blood boil. Even worse when they do everything to be as invisible as possible (for example, wearing mostly black).
  - _Wintermute 5y ago
    > Using the same road as me, at a fourth of my speed, thus risking a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved Sounds like it's you with the heavy fast moving object that's creating the danger in that situation.
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      It's like a person walking on train tracks - the train is the big, dangerous fast-moving thing, but the danger comes from mixing the two. You expect to see trains on a train track, indeed they can't go anywhere else. Pedestrians should walk on the pavement, not the train track. That's the "pro-car / anti-bike" angle, I think. If cars had been invented first, it would probably be illegal to ride bikes on the road. They basically were grandfathered-in.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      If a car went 10 mph on a 50 mph road I would be just as mad as if it was a biker.
  - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
    > a perfectly good bike lane Let's see it. Street View link, please? You'd be amazed how inconvenient or dangerous many "perfectly good bike lanes" turn out to be.
moritonal 5y ago
It's been shown often that people are very capable of thinking of others as not human. Now wrap them in a nice metal bubble (car), and put the other human into a weird pose on a metal frame (bike) and the division is even easier. I'd then also imagine it's a coping mechanism for the guilt/stress drivers face worrying about cyclists, given the difference of damage in a crash, so they think of the cyclists as "a cyclist who decided to ride up next to me" rather than "a human on a bike trying to get to work".
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
...to think "they're not [fully] human" would imply significant cognitive deficiency. I mean, it is one the world has been plagued with. You can find past examples in constitutions viewing slaves as lesser and forbidding Jewish folks from a country. In modern times - at least in the US - folks use it for immigrants and prisoners and to a lesser extent, poor people. And sure, a deficiency, but I'm pretty sure it is one folks choose part of the time. Admittedly, however, I think what the article refers to is kind of a mental shortcut folks do unknowingly - one of those things that usually just helps us process the world around us. A car isn't full of people, it is a thing. A bike is a mini car on wheels. Walking folks, even with a bike, are people, though.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.” ― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

Nemrod67 5y ago

We're never getting back all the calories burned for this, our civilization peaked in the year 2000 i'm afraid

yodelshady 5y ago

Note that the "cockroaches" slur originated from Queensland police: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/police-liken-cyclists-to-cockroaches-online-20141104-11gwmb.html https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/police-... I won't be giving QL my tourist money in a hurry.

sdevonoes 5y ago

In my limited experience with people on wheels: - cars, motorbikes: always stop to let you pass. They will even say sorry if they look as if they didn't let us pass in a crosswalk - cyclists, scooters: never stop. You are the one who has to stop, and if you don't do that they look at you as if you need to say sorry to them

bigDinosaur 5y ago
This is so far from my experience in every single city I've ever lived in or visited across several continents I'm not sure how you have possibly arrived at this experience. In which city do cars and motorbikes always stop to let you pass? Again, I cannot state how fundamentally foreign this is to me. I can think of only a few cities (which I haven't visited) for which this may be true, and that's limited to a very select number of countries.
- msk-lywenn 5y ago
  In Portugal they do stop. That's the only place on earth I've witnessed it. It's... huh... surprisingly weird to, for example, stop on the sidewalk waiting for someone to then notice all the cars stopping for no apparent reason and then only noticing you're in front of a pedestrian crossing. Oops. They sometimes even go as far as to brake so hard when seeing a pedestrian that they cause an accident. I witnessed that one at least twice! Once three cars smashed into each other...
- NoboruWataya 5y ago
  It accords with my experience of multiple big cities. The comment you're responding to mentioned "crosswalk" which I take to mean a zebra/pedestrian crossing. Cars and motorcycles do stop at them, as a rule, if only because if they don't stop and something bad happens they are in serious trouble. Some cyclists stop, many don't.
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    My experience has been that most people stop, but certainly not all. If they always stopped you would never have to look both ways before crossing at a zebra crossing - but doing so has literally probably saved me from being killed or severely injured multiple times. Certainly there's no place I've been where it's only cyclists who are poorly behaved.

KaiserPro 5y ago

Depends on where you are in the world. the Netherlands, this doesn't apply. Cyclists might be dicks (especially in amsterdam) but everyone cycles. In the UK in the big cities, there tends to be lots of cycling. Adherence to the rules of red lights is lax amongst <15% of cyclist. However they are the obnoxious noisy shites whom everyone hates. (fellow cyclists included) Again, not subhuman, but classic dickheads. In the US(well NYC), from the time I lived there, cyclists are either raging hippies, or aggressive couriers. On the westcoast it was more of a lifestyle choice.

nicbou 5y ago
> but everyone cycles This is probably the key. A cyclist behind the wheel will usually show some consideration for other cyclists. Same for motorcyclists. Besides, there are just more cyclists in Europe in general. Drivers are used to seeing them, and driver training accounts for them. It's easy to hate the single cyclist on your commute, but when there are hundreds of them, you must accept their existence.
globular-toast 5y ago
If you cycle enough you'll know that often red lights are silly for bicycles. Bicycles shouldn't be treated like cars. They are better. In particular, smaller, more nimble and less dangerous. I'm a big fan of the "Idaho stop". Essentially it "downgrades" the meaning of stop signs and red lights for cyclists, turning a red light into a stop and a stop into a give way. It makes a lot of sense. Traffic lights and other complications are there because cars are dangerous. People using other modes shouldn't be forced to take the same responsibility as a car driver.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Red lights are sometimes silly for cars too. And sometimes they are upgraded with sensors that make them automatically go green when you approach an empty intersection, making them a little less silly. They don't always work well; in my area some sensors seem to trigger too late, resulting in unnecessary braking, and others trigger too early and might encourage you to speed up for the intersection to avoid getting a yellow or even red just before you enter. Sometimes they give a green for the go-straight lane just when you're switching to the turn lane, which stays red even though there's no traffic.. One of my favorite solutions is simply turning the lights off altogether when there's not much traffic. They do that at quite a few intersections here.

Reason077 5y ago

Could there be something alien and unnatural about cycling that triggers a visceral response in our brains resulting in fear, anger, and aggression? In New Zealand and Australia there is a bird called the Magpie. During their nesting season in the spring, they sometimes get very aggressive towards cyclists. It's not unusual for them to swoop down and hit at you from behind with their claws. There are even cases of cyclists being killed by Magpies after being knocked off their bikes. But in my experience, if a Magpie is swooping you, the best way to make it stop is to get off your bike! As soon as the bird sees you on your feet and pushing your bike, they will calm down and back off. I've also heard of bulls in farmer's fields behaving the same way - aggressive towards someone on a bike, but calming down when you're pushing it. Could human brains be similar, especially for those not used to seeing cyclists so often?

TomSwirly 5y ago
> Could there be something alien and unnatural about cycling that triggers a visceral response in our brains resulting in fear, anger, and aggression? I have to say that in a long life, I've heard a lot of arguments by drivers against bikes, but never one as extreme as this one! "Bikes are alien and unnatural and trigger fear, anger and aggression [and therefore it's perfectly natural that drivers try to deliberately kill cyclists as in this article]" > especially for those not used to seeing cyclists so often? 90% of Australians live in cities, where they see cyclists every single day.
tokai 5y ago
Lots a animals become agitated by humans in contraptions that they haven't experienced a lot. I once talked with a wheelchair-bound man that told me that it is very common for dogs to bark at people in wheelchairs if the dog hasn't see that before. Most animals and especially wild animals are just neophobic, including humans.
- nicbou 5y ago
  Yep. Stray dogs hate my motorcycle.
Earw0rm 5y ago

Terry_Roll 5y ago

I think driving a vehicle is like strapping yourself into a mobile suit of armour, thrown in exposure to lots of red tail lights and you have the perfect recipe for seeing red. The bad press for cyclists in some countries dont help, probably some oil company kickback or someone who relies on tax revenues and more can then be explained.

CalRobert 5y ago
Also doesn't help how much newspapers rely on car dealerships and manufacturers for advertising, or what percentage of radio listeners are driving while they listen.
soneil 5y ago
I honestly think cars are our "sacred cows". That's why we're not talking about people inconveniencing people, we're talking about bicycles inconveniencing cars. We're not talking about people's rights, we're talking about cars' rights. This is of course tongue-in-cheek, but do watch how we word this - surprisingly few people talk about drivers, most talk about cars. Even road rage makes a lot more sense when you realise we're rushing to defend the honour of our sacred cow. And it's so deeply cultural, not driving is like being "culturally catholic" - you might not be practicing, but you've been raised in it and accept it as the default. So we won't ask why cars have some god-given right over all other road users. That's just a given, that's how the west works. Instead we ask why those lesser road users dare inconvenience them, and how we can get those lycra-wrapped vegans out the way of our fire-breathing demigods. And within this terrible analogy, the Dutch are of course heathen. We accept that they've somehow made being godless work, but we won't even try to wrap our heads around how.

renewiltord 5y ago

CalRobert 5y ago

I cycled to work in LA for a year and I'd be there getting ready for standup helmet-in-hand listening to coworkers joke about murdering me. Nevermind these same people bitched about traffic all the time and seemed angry that I got to work in about the same time cycling or driving (405 during rush hour. vs riding down the beach path, Santa Monica to El Segundo). Imagine if I joked about shooting my coworkers - how would that go?

Lio 5y ago
I have cameras built into the lights on my bike, front and rear plus a second light with radar on the back. When I told my family this my, normally quite friendly, brother-in-law asked why. I told him that it's not unusual to be threatened by drivers when cycling. Anything from close passes that make you jump to a passenger leaning out trying to put a plastic bag over my head. He got quite angry and proceeded to tell me that cyclists "bring it on themselves and deserve what's coming to them" ...and we get on. If I suggested waving a baseball bat at strangers on the street he'd rightly think I was mental but apparently if you're on a bike you're fair game. It's not that unusual for randos I meet socially to say something like "lycra-clad MEN!, it's always men![1], need to get off the road and pay road tax![2], and stop riding through red lights[3] and wear NORMAL clothes![4]" I could argue with all of that or call them an asshole but what's the point? It's best not to say anything. It's not about truth or statistics it's about othering an out-group, cyclists and not feeling bad when you scare or hurt them. 1. I ride with lots of women in my bike club. They get just as much hassle but there's generally less kudos at parties in bragging that you tailgated the shit out of a lone woman because she was wearing tight clothes. 2. Road tax in the UK was abolished in 1937. No one here has to pay it and like most cyclists I also have a car. 3. As a point of pride I never ride through a red light but I do see drivers tailgate through red lights or on the wrong side of the road every single day. 4. If I'm going to get sweaty why wouldn't I wear comfortable kit? It's not like I wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to go swimming either.
- nmeofthestate 5y ago
  As a cyclist in Scotland who's never had any trouble on the road, I was going to sympathise with your having to put up with a toxic culture in your country. But then I saw your in the UK!

nonrandomstring 5y ago

Go along the canal tow path between Hackney and Islington if you want to see humanity at its lowest :) You'll find; Walking Pedestrians Runners Cyclists Mums with buggies Latte drinking hipsters You could devise a Rock-Paper or Top Trumps type game where each has their own agility, velocity, hit-power, hated outgroups, allies, special powers and so on. The most aggressive by far are runners. They literally hate all other groups and will deliberately elbow you in the ribs or push aside anything that gets between them and the new high-score target time. Buggy mums have a special power of vulnerability, second only to wheelchair users that can, like Moses, part the sea of apologising docile bodies (Everyone in London is constantly "sorry", simply for existing and being in other people's way. But "sorry" is actually a very subtle and British form of "Fuck you"). Cyclists vary between extremely polite and conscientious folks who gently ring their bells and pass single-file in groups... to absolute assholes. How expensive their bikes are more or less directly correlates with abusive behaviour. The optimal bike in London costs about 50 quid and is a fashion item that demonstrates you have nothing to prove. Anyone on a £400 mountain bike is almost certainly a total tosser. Pedestrians, necks craned, heads down in their smartphones. earbuds blocking out any warning shouts or cyclists bells, zig-zag across the path while reading Facebook or scrolling on whatever dumb new app they have. And you don't need to be fast moving and dangerous to cause chaos. Hipsters literally sit in the path, man-spreading their legs across the lane, daring anyone to interrupt their beard-stroking and spill their latte. On a good day this is all a cosmopolitan good natured jossle. On bad day things get violent and people get thrown in the canal. The point is, that heterogeneous users in crowded transit paths don't work well together. Amsterdam is another good example, but has a different dynamic once you mix-in ten-ton trams. Car drivers are just one more level of removal. With cars on the roads it's life and death, and scores of cyclists are killed every year in London. We recently changed the Highway Code in the UK to give pedestrians (and cyclists) far higher priority over cars. But, like using phones while driving, nobody pays the least attention, and laws are barely enforced in Britain anyway, which is a good and bad thing.

secondcoming 5y ago
> But "sorry" is actually a very subtle and British form of "Fuck you" No it's not. It not actually a heartfelt apology, but it's most certainly not an FU either.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

blarg1 5y ago

Here in Australia, I was once riding down a main road, nearly keeping up with the few cars on the road, someone drove past me and blasted the horn for about 10 seconds. Don't know what their problem was.

sammyjoe72 5y ago
Here in Australia, I was riding to work one morning, and I filtered through to the front of the grid at a red light. I could hear the passenger in the car to my right abusing me. When the light went green, I took off, and I heard the car come up beside me… they matched my speed, pulled in close, and the passenger opened is car door into me in an attempt to knock me off. I didn’t come off, and followed them to get the number plate. Went to the police station, and lodged the complaint. They were actually going to charge the passenger and driver with attempted murder. Turned out the number plate hadn’t been registered in 14 years. I said “that’s weird, why would they be driving around with unregistered plates” and the cops response was dry: “to steal petrol” Amazing.

gitowiec 5y ago

When I'm behind the wheel I hate cyclists. Not all of them, just the part that behaves like they take part in some Olympics challenge. The same is when I ride a bike. I still hate them, because they are a threat. I am afraid to share road with such people. They do not slow down, they squeeze in where there's not enough room. I'm stressed when riding a bike that I get into awful accident. And I'm stressed when riding my car that I will get someone into hospital and I will have to take responsibility of someone dumbness

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

urthor 5y ago

Pretty sure it's just the red light jumpers. Stick a QR code on the front of the bikes, and put some AI cameras at every traffic light. Problem, solved.

zachrip 5y ago
If cyclists stop running red lights, people will stop running them over? Am I understanding you correctly?
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
There is plenty of evidence that cyclists obey the rules of the road more than car drivers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists-break-far-fewer-road-rules-than-motorists-finds-new-video-study/#638693ba4bfa https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists... https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-break-traffic-laws-any-more-than-drivers-do/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-b...

pmontra 5y ago

I think it depends of how many people routinely use a bicycle or have used one. Once you're a cyclist you don't bitch too much at other cyclists when you're driving a car. I do about 15-20k km driving a car per year and 6-7k on a bicycle. I tend to know what to do not to piss off cyclists or car drivers.

notacoward 5y ago
Might also depend on how many people routinely use a car. I've seen many comments, here and elsewhere, from the "I never drive [but have other people drive for me]" set, that show a startling ignorance of what's reasonable to expect of drivers. "Never take your eyes off the road" - what, not to check my rear or side mirrors, read a sign, see whether a pedestrian is about to step off the curb, find the defrost button so I don't lose visibility? Some driving is necessary and some is not, but cyclists and pedestrians acting unpredictably makes 100% safety impossible in both cases. People who regularly do both tend to be pretty reasonable about accommodating each other. People who only do one, either way, not so much.

Gareth321 5y ago

I have a unique perspective here, having lived in both Australia and a modern European country with AMAZING cycling infrastructure. Bikes should not share the same spaces as pedestrians OR cars. Period. If they must share, bikes are much closer to pedestrians than cars, yet we ask them to share the road with cars. These modes of transport are VASTLY different, and of course lead to all kinds of animosity between these groups. Australia is notorious for underfunding and ignoring anything resembling cycling infrastructure. Cyclists believe they're "motor vehicles," and indeed, under many statues, they are legally classed as such. The problem is, when there is a 20 car queue stuck behind two cyclists riding next to each other, cruising along at 30kph in a 100kph zone (yes, this actually happens, often), this just not efficient use of the road. The answer is not "teach drivers to be okay with driving at 30kph everywhere." That's silly and I'm tired of this canard. The answer is of course better infrastructure. Hard barriers between cyclists and motorists, and preferably pedestrians too. The only reason this problem exists is apathy and greed. It's often the motorists most impacted by slow and dangerous cyclists who are least willing to increase their taxes to solve this problem.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
It takes a long time to build the right infrastructure, the Dutch have been doing it for forty years and they aren't finished yet.
- llampx 5y ago
  I could say the same about roads and highways, given that long stretches of the Autobahn are seemingly always in construction and/or certain stretches have been in construction for years. When you're "done" with infrastructure you tend to get spectacular collapses.
  - mlatu 5y ago
    Autobahn? I think you mean Gemany, the other person was talking about the Dutch (Netherlands)

DrBazza 5y ago

The Daily Mail, in the UK, in particular has some weird anti-cyclist obsession. The recent changes to the Highway Code are just explicit statements about what cyclists and pedestrians can do (edit - actually what cars should do with respect to pedestrians), whereas before it was implicit - if a pedestrian steps out into the road, would you continue to drive and run them over? Of course not. That's now explicitly stated that the pedestrian has right of way. Similarly with cyclists moving to the middle of a lane for safety, it's now explicit in the highway code. Yet, the Daily Mail have made it out like it's a war and the end of civilization as we know it. It's both sad and hilarious reading their faux-rage about lanes being taken out in London for cyclists which are full of far more people cycling at 9am and 5pm than the number of people sat in stationary cars in the adjacent lane (Victoria Embankment). And then taking a picture of the cycle lane on a Sunday, publishing it, and claiming 'it's barely used'.

maffydub 5y ago
I understood the changes to the Highway Code differently (although could be wrong). My understanding was that previously there were various situations where pedestrians did not have right of way and so, if there were cars coming, should not step into the road. That's not to say that if they did, cars could just run them down. Now, the pedestrian has right if way, and so is right to step into the road. Have I misunderstood?
- globular-toast 5y ago
  Priority, not right of way. There's a big difference. Everyone has right of way to on the public highway at all times. In England and Wales the public has right of way on byways, bridleways and footpaths too (although there are restrictions on what type of vehicle is allowed, if any). In Scotland the public has right of way everywhere by non-motorised means. Your right of way never trumps someone else's right of way, nor does it trump someone else's right to live. Priority is a completely different concept. When you give way, you are not losing your right of way. You are simply waiting for your turn. Priority is a simple rule to make sure everyone can exercise their right of way fairly and safely. I really wish people would think about what they are saying. As a walker in England/Wales, you don't take right of way for granted.

maffydub 5y ago

I don't drive or cycle (just a pedestrian) and definitely don't want to "dehumanize" cyclists, but I do find it scary (at least here in London) how rarely cyclists follow the Highway Code. In particular, it is very common to see cyclists running red lights or cycling the wrong way down one-way streets. I guess since there's no registration, it's very unlikely cyclists would be penalised for this.

ndsipa_pomu 5y ago
I think that cyclists running red lights is a symptom that most crossings and junctions are designed primarily for motor vehicles. Some countries modify traffic laws for cyclists such as the Idaho Stop and Paris has also made changes so that red lights can be treated as Give Way/Yield. However that does not excuse cyclists that endanger pedestrians. One-way streets are also seldom designed to take into account cyclists and again, they're designed for large motor vehicles. Here in the UK, there are lots of one-way streets that have a specific cycle lane to go the wrong way, but it's a lottery as to whether local councils have bothered to examine the one-ways.
unglaublich 5y ago
", but". That's because that highway code was designed for huge and heavy cars that need lots of time and space to come to a stop and that pose a danger for other road users. Not for agile and light cyclists. The rules just do not make a lot of sense for cyclists. E.g., in the Netherlands there are traffic lights for cyclists. They turn green for all 4 directions simultaneously, for only a few seconds. That's enough to have tens, sometimes hundreds of cyclists cross a road, WITHOUT any collision or danger. Cars are just too big and heavy for most urban areas. They belong on _highways_ indeed.
- maffydub 5y ago
  I'd be happy with the Highway Code being updated, or with other provision being made for cyclists, but it sounds like you're suggesting cyclists should just ignore the rules? The trouble with that is that by not following the rules, it's harder for other road users (in particular pedestrians) to predict what they're going to do. Even though bikes are much lighter than cars, I'd prefer not to be hot by either!

TomSwirly 5y ago

I lived in Canada for ten years. I biked every day. However, during that time Canada's gold medal cyclist was paralyzed by being hit by a garbage truck whose driver had been deliberately trying to scare the cyclist repeatedly (to the point he'd called the cops) and yet got off entirely. I moved to New York City and I stopped cycling almost immediately. Vacillating between anxiety, terror and rage was not good for me. Twenty years later I bought a bike, and a month later give it to my neighbor - even with a few bike paths, it was just as bad. Thirty years after I had come to NYC, I moved to the Netherlands. And now I bike absolutely everywhere. Cars treat bikes like they are gold. Several times, cars have hard-braked because they suddenly noticed me, even though I wasn't in danger. Every single car that stops for me here gets a smile and a wave, because I so, so, so appreciate being able to bike again, and being treated like my life has value.

fxtentacle 5y ago

I bicycle a lot more than I drive. But I have to say, some of my fellow cyclists are really obnoxious assholes. Like driving 2 next to each other with 20km/h in a 100km/h area. Of course all the cars that have to wait for them are going to be pissed. And especially so if those morons drive on the road even when there's a perfectly workable dedicated bike lane next to the road. And why is it that elderly men who drive super slowly always feel the need to dress up in neon-colored skin-tight pants? One the one hand, I believe car drivers are somewhat rational in hating cyclists, because 10-20% of them really are assholes. On the other hand, I am scared that their reaction to asshole bicycle drivers also affects my own bicycling safety.

stefan_ 5y ago
What's your deal with what some people wear to exercise? Is that a fetish or something of yours?
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  Well, the article is about "dehumanisation of cyclists". I would expect that it is a lot easier to dehumanize people that look really different from anyone else. If most friendly bicycle drivers wear regular clothing and most entitled bicycle drivers wear neon pink, over time car drivers will come to expect a certain behavior just based on looks alone.
  - mvc 5y ago
    > I would expect that it is a lot easier to dehumanize people that look really different from anyone else I wonder when this has ever got us into trouble as a society before. Maybe check yourself if you find yourself experiencing feelings like this. "The gays" sometimes wear strange clothing just for fun. Do you think it's acceptable to dehumanize them too?
unglaublich 5y ago
You sound like you're a part of the problem. A rant about clothing, and motorists are "rational in hating cyclists", because "10-20% of them are assholes"?

Tade0 5y ago

I've found that I don't mind cyclists on the road at all - I just pass them at the nearest opportunity maintaining appropriate distance. I don't think I ever experienced any sort of dangerous situation caused by a cyclist while driving. I do hate having them in places meant for pedestrians though - I don't enjoy being passed at a few centimetre distance by something twice as fast as a jogger. I've been to places that impose restrictions on cycling in pedestrianized areas. Example: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.2688632,-2.9319466,3a,75y,288.58h,99.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sugsReryiuxdoojk6dP9-fw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.2688632,-2.9319466,3a,75y,28... The experience of walking is so much better there. Because of this I don't believe a truly walkable city should prioritize cycling. As with anything the asshole 5% ruin it for everyone else.

hulitu 5y ago
> I don't think I ever experienced any sort of dangerous situation caused by a cyclist while driving. Lucky you. Besides red light crossing and driving on the wrong side of the road the worst thing i experienced were cyclist in the night without any light or reflective clothing and a drunk cyclist who decided to suddenly change direction, both on country roads. Fortunately, exept some very hard breaking and cursing, nothing happened.

hackboyfly 5y ago

I live in Stockholm, a lot of cyclist and a lot of cars sharing small roads. I do not drive a car nor do I ride a bike. But TBH there is a bigger chance to get hit by a bike than a car here, and that's why I don't like them. There seems to be a limbo existing that is been taking advantage of by the cyclist here, they are neither a car nor a pedestrian. They seem to switch between "Move am a car" and "Mind me am a pedestrian", making it very hard to actually know what they are doing. At the same time cyclist (some) don't seem to follow any unwritten nor written rules about speed. They have no problem passing you as a pedestrian 20 km/h often by surprise cause you cant really hear them coming.

mkoryak 5y ago

I found one easy trick to make cars and pedestrians love me while a bike commute... I attached a fake pigeon to my helmet. Every commute was filled with smiles. Someone even made a spoof movie trailer about it once. I don't pigeonride as much now because of COVID. https://youtu.be/7pYRsLedthI https://youtu.be/7pYRsLedthI

rodolphoarruda 5y ago

Lance Armstrong once said he used to tell younger riders from his team to remove their cycling eye glasses (shades?) and helmet when approaching the finish line, so they could cross it with a bare face to the cameras, especially when winning the race. He said this would "re-humanize" the rider to the public, creating the opportunity for social projection, fame, success etc. In my own experience as a cyclist, whenever I see myself in a tense situation in the traffic, I remove my glasses, stick them in the helmet and look at drivers' faces in a non provocative way. It helps, I think, in most of the times. I think the driver regains the sensation that I'm not a thing/object, but a human.

D13Fd 5y ago

Just because you think they are sometimes jerks and may be dangerous doesn't mean you think they are not human. As a pedestrian and driver I've nearly been hit multiple times by cyclists (or scooter riders, who are similar) going full speed downhill on the sidewalk, or flying through crosswalks and straight through a red light, or going the wrong way on a one-way street. One time, as I stepped off the curb, a man on a bike nearly hit me as he flew the wrong way through a red light and across a busy intersection -- and he shouted at me as he did it. I'm of the view that riding bicycles is great, but that people on bikes need to obey the rules of whatever infrastructure they are using just like everyone else. I don't know why some people think as soon as they hop on a bike the rules no longer apply to them.

davisoneee 5y ago
The same way some people on cars don't give a shit about rules. Because people are selfish. The question is, how much are these people outliers? How much of it is you remembering and inflating the few bad situations, and forgetting the uneventful interactions? Compare this to how often people do shit in (much more dangerous) cars, that we just take for granted as regular road behaviour.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  How often do I see cars blatantly ignore red lights and stop signs, drive on busy sidewalks, and go the wrong way on one-way streets? It's very uncommon. Bicycles here are much rarer, but when you see them, they are vastly more likely to be doing those things.
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    Next time you are walking past a junction take a peek at how many drivers are using their phones. A telltale sign is a delayed response when the signal changes green. That aside, I don’t understand why your experiences of bad cycling are relevant here.

jarek83 5y ago

I believe what happens is kind of a cycle feedback - a driver becomes pedestrian. That pedestrian is badly treaded by a cyclist - high speed passing sometimes ending up with a slight hit. Usually angry responses to any comment toward a cyclist. That pedestrian goes back into a car, and spots a cyclist using street that goes perfectly along an unoccupied path for cyclists. Sorry but, my personal experience with cyclist is that they seem to be worse towards pedestrians than drivers are towards them.

soneil 5y ago

It's a weird conversation that's always biassed by default. How about if we suggested that if cars can't share the roads with other users, we ban cars from the roads? Of course I'm not seriously advocating that, but the difference in the knee-jerk reaction is interesting. If we both have a right to be on the road, the question is just as valid either way around.

underwater 5y ago

It implies that the dehumanisation leads to aggressive behaviour, but it could just be correlation and not causation. How do we know that these people aren't just assholes? There are unfortunately a segment of Aussies who embrace the aggressive bogan stereotype, and seek out opportunities to insult and belittle other people.