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Hate for bicycles hasn’t changed. People think a bike travel is recreational, and thus less important than a car travel. Someone goes out of their way to affir

• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  It depends on where you're from and how your cities are designed though; this is not an issue in e.g. the Netherlands.
  • ggm 4y ago
    Don't be a naieve tourist in NL and fail to understand who has right of way in cycle lanes, easily mistaken for pedestrian pavement
  • radicalbyte 4y ago
    I'm from NL and I kind of hate the way too many drivers don't look for cyclists and how many old people on eBikes clog up all of the nice cycle routes here. Although the latter is more a problem of old people from the Randstad vacationing here (Gelderland).
• theK 4y ago
  Re: hate for bicycles I think, especially in cities, you just have the problem of bicycles not fitting in either of the two historically present transport modes. They are too slow for the street and waaaaay to fast for the pedestrian side. Bike lanes historically do not deliver as they increase traffic pattern complexity significantly for all three participants. I have seen some very ambitious plans to make city Centers free of anything that can go faster than 25kph and I root for such plans but they are all very naive usually. Still, happy to see the world move in such a direction. Until then I think we will have to live with the fact that there are some legitimate reasons to hate on the bicycle. PS: before you all get worked up for what a bicycle hating subhuman I must be. I own a mountain bike, I happily use it in forests and mountainous regions and get huge amounts of recreational value out of it.
  • tankenmate 4y ago
    I think the experience of the Netherlands shows that bicycles can happily be part of the transport mix if they are properly catered for; dedicated traffic lanes separated from car traffic. It's the half hearted measures that typically fail.
  • Beltalowda 4y ago
    > you just have the problem of bicycles not fitting in either of the two historically present transport modes. They are too slow for the street and waaaaay to fast for the pedestrian side. The biggest problems I've had have actually been in places where this isn't the case: slow-moving inner city traffic here you can just keep up with cars. In some traffic situations this is certainly a problem, but I think it's just part of the overall problem.
  • mattashii 4y ago
    > waaaaay to fast for the pedestrian side. Uh, what? Reaching 15km/h is not unheard of for running either, so why would that be waaaaay too fast on a bike in mainly pedestrian areas? Sure, the bike should slow down to lower speeds than their norm to ensure safety for all people involved in traffic, but isn't that no different from how cars shouldn't go 100km/h+ in city centers?
    • hellweaver666 4y ago
      I live in Amsterdam, 15km/h is a "slow" bike. Most fit adults cruise at around 20km/h and e-bikes are often blasting along at 25km/h+ The problem with bikes is that most don't have a speedo so they have no clue how fast they are travelling.
      • mattashii 4y ago
        I see your point, but Amsterdam generally has separate lanes for cars, bikes and foot traffic. The point I was making is that it is safe to use a bike in foot traffic areas if you slow down to match the expected speeds of your surrounding traffic; such as using a bike in the historical city center of e.g. Amersfoort or Utrecht, where there is usually a lot of foot traffic and little car traffic, and no separate bike lanes.
• mnd999 4y ago
  I have a lot more hate for bicycles since I stopped driving and started walking as it turns out.
  • fzfaa 4y ago
    When driving, cyclists are dangerous for themselves and for others. When walking, cyclists have absolutely no regard for my physical safety. When I lived in a city with a lot of cyclists I ended up developing some kind of fear that made me look around all the time because of how many cyclists had almost killed me when I was peacefully walking along the pavement. Oh god how I hate cyclists.
    • ginko 4y ago
      You seem to be under the impression that bikes are like cars where you're essentially guaranteed to be dead of at least maimed when they hit you. In reality the most likely thing to happen to you is that you maybe get so nasty scratches and dirty clothing.
      • throw_a_grenade 4y ago
        Not OP, but this your "reality" is wrong. For example, three days ago in Warsaw, a cyclist ran over a child (ER took the child to hospital) on a busy promenade on the bank of the river. The cycleway is temporarily moved there because of the roadwork and the space is designated as shared between cycle and foot traffic. For several days pedestarians complained that cyclists drive like crazy and it's "when" not "if" some cyclist will hit someone. That unfortunately proved to be accurate. https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/ulice/warszawa-rowerzysta-potracil-dziecko-na-bulwarach-wislanych-6078388 https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/ulice/warszawa-rowerzysta-potra... [PL]
        • ginko 4y ago
          Meanwhile there's over 2000 deadly car accidents a year in Poland, 20% of which are pedestrians[1], meaning there's more than one pedestrian killed by a car every day. [1] https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/11/23/road-deaths-in-poland-among-eus-highest-continue-to-fall/ https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/11/23/road-deaths-in-poland...
• mrweasel 4y ago
  Hate to say it, but when I see how bikes are "integrated" into for example American traffic, I don't blame the drivers at all. WTF is a bike doing in the middle of the road? If there's no bike lanes, then the bikes go all the way to the right, there are almost no exceptions. I've watches a few videos of people biking, on bike lanes, in New York, and those lanes are placed by a mad man. Sometimes they are even on the wrong side of the road. Go to the Netherlands, go to Denmark, Copenhagen especially and see how to mix traffic types. It's not perfect, but it's light years ahead of what some other countries are attempting.
  • eptcyka 4y ago
    How am I supposed to make a left turn at an intersection? Other than that, yes, being on the far right on the road is where I'd feel safest.
    • phicoh 4y ago
      On a busy road the only safe option is to make two crossings: stay on the right and cross and then cross again. It is very annoying. Depending on the situation, you can indeed move to a lane that turns left. But it requires cooperation from drivers. So in places where drivers are either hostile to bikes or likely to overlook bikes, it is not a safe way to turn.
    • 411111111111111 4y ago
      Worst case you'll have to wait one traffic light rotation. One of the directions is generally green when you get there, then you'll have to wait for the switch and you can continue. But that heavily depends on how the traffic is routed. Not Just Bikes is very opinionated, but gives some pretty nice examples of well executed crossings in the Netherlands https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes
    • mrweasel 4y ago
      You don't. Sorry, bikes DO NOT make left turns in intersections. You go straight across, then cross from there. I've biked to school and work for 25 years, and in intersections, I never make a left turn. It takes 2 minutes extra at the most, small price to pay for not being under a truck. Smaller roads, sure, if there's no traffic, you just look over your left shoulder and make the turn if it's all clear.
• cozos 4y ago
  Starting biking around the city and can definitely feel the hate. People honking at me, etc.
• ChrisRR 4y ago
  In the UK as a cyclist I still get so much hate on the road. I'm just trying to get to work like everyone else, but people still drive their cars up right behind me, squeeze past when there's not enough space, beep their horns and shout out the window. And then the justification is always "well I saw a cyclist run a red light once, therefore all cyclists are shit"
  • evandijk70 4y ago
    How often does that kind of thing happen? Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly?
    • MagnumOpus 4y ago
      You wouldn't need to ask if you rode a bike regularly. Every 20 minutes of riding is my guess.
    • ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
      There's a huge variation. Some rides, I've had two or three incidents that the police have actioned after I submitted the cam footage, and other times, I can go a couple of months without a bad incident.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • austinjp 4y ago
      Motorist squeezing past at speed without adequate space? Every single time.
    • laputan_machine 4y ago
      If you commute daily (5 times a week) then you will see at least one terrible / dangerous driver in that time period. Some weeks it can be really bad, several a day, some weeks it will be almost silent (but always at least one nutter). The weather makes a big difference, for some reason drivers drive a lot worse in the rain and really hot weather, usually speeding / running reds and not checking mirrors more often than in overcast / typical UK weather.
• LAC-Tech 4y ago
  I've never found bicycles to be a massive issue on roads. They're slow and narrow, so they're easy to overtake. Where I am there's often tractors on the road. A lot harder to overtake, and I still manage to refrain from getting angry at them either! People need to just chill the fuck out.
  • tcfhgj 4y ago
    They're only narrow when they drive in the dooring zone and minimum distance isn't kept during overtaking (Germany: 1.5m in town, else 2m)
    • klabb3 4y ago
      > the dooring zone Which is the most dangerous place to be of all. Cyclists must avoid this zone except for near-zero speeds. I usually tell new cyclists to assume that you are never seen unless you are right in front of a car. Assume all cars have no mirrors, side windows and all doors can be opened at any time. In a car, the mentality is usually "if I have the right of way I'll do it", on a bike it's a death wish.
    • LAC-Tech 4y ago
      1. Most of the time I encounter cyclists is on country roads, which is 90% of my driving. 2. In the city they're even less of an issue, because the speed limit is 50 km/h and they're doing what, 20-40km/h? It's not that big a deal especially if you factor in intersections, roundabouts, etc. 3. They're still narrower than farm tractors. Or herds of cattle. It's just not that big a deal.
  • bipson 4y ago
    A lot of people, those around me included, seem to not grasp that for safe overtake of a bicycle you still require a second lane (at least partially) besides your own. But in traffic and the laws lane usage is binary. There is no such thing as half lanes, you cannot use the second lane "a little". You either need it, or you don't. So overtaking a bicycle, a motorbike, a pedestrian on the road or a tractor, etc. it is all the same. What I'm trying to say is, where I live people forget that all the time, and then they think they can "squeeze by", endangering cyclists, motorcyclists and most of all the opposing traffic. I see this multiple times a week in the summer.
• paganel 4y ago
  > Hate for bicycles hasn’t changed. It would help if most of the present-day bicycle owners wouldn't be solid middle-class people who, when asking for a banning of cars, don't really know, or don't want to know, how crucial owning a car is for a person who isn't that well-off.
  • ddevault 4y ago
    This view omits a lot of nuance. Few people are calling for an immediate, unconditional ban on cars, unaccompanied by other reforms. What's clear -- and well backed by research -- is that cars are the worst form of travel compared to the alternatives. The key, then, is to make those alternatives more realistic by accompanying a ban on cars with a serious increase in investment in better public transit and urban design. This approach is far better for those who aren't "well-off". Cars are very expensive! If we can free people from that economic burden and reduce the environmental impact and improve the availability of alternate means of transit, then the call to eliminate cars is extremely well justified. An argument which, again, is backed up by a wealth of robust scientific research covering all aspects of the problem, including economic.
  • femiagbabiaka 4y ago
    You’ve got it backwards: Most people who ride bikes do not fit this description. Working class riders represent the large majority of riders globally. They ride for transportation, not pleasure, and on whatever bike they can, in whatever state they can get it. Because you’re right: a car is actually not an achievable purchase for those in precarious financial situations. This is the case for most forms of alternative transportation. So funding support for those forms is really important, even if for some reason you want to not do that to spite… moderately well off people.
    • paganel 4y ago
      This is what normal people understand right now when someone mentions bicycles: "Portlandia bike clip" [1]. It's a 10+ year old clip but all the better for it, sitcoms like Portlandia were in the vanguard of a lot of class-suppression and gentrifying stuff that we now see as "good for everybody!", not just for the middle-classes from which we're a part of (and which those sitcoms were targeting, self-parody used to be part of our class-related shtick). [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3nMnr8ZirI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3nMnr8ZirI
• piokoch 4y ago
  I don't care about bikes on the road (as long as they obey traffic regulations, which happens to be a problem, some people who bike just don't know the rules), however I am mad about bikers on the pavements and even more about electric scooters on pavements, which are a plague now and are even more dangerous than bikes.
• eru 4y ago
  > People think a bike travel is recreational, [...] Depends on where you live, I guess?
• rimliu 4y ago
  Mine increased, actually. Cyclists have the least respect for traffic rules out of all participants. Like literally everyone else on the road has to bend to their will.
• markus_zhang 4y ago
  The point, from a driver's perspective, is that driving is a social activity, so whoever does not behave well is not welcomed, drivers or cyclists. I have no issue if cyclists are riding on reserved lanes, but I DO have an issue if 1) they are blocking other vehicles for 20+ seconds, 2) suddenly come onto road from sidewalk, 3) anything else that adds mental burden to other people That said, I hope ALL roads have cyclist lanes so that I can enjoy more cycling.
  • bwindels 4y ago
    So if you can't safely overtake a bicycle, you expect it to stop by the side of the road to let you pass after 20 seconds?
    • dageshi 4y ago
      If they're going significantly slower than the average speed and there's a pile of traffic held up behind them... yes?
      • bwindels 4y ago
        So if you're stuck behind a tractor, do you also expect it to stop by the side of the road and let all traffic pass? I'm sure many farmers would disagree with you there and tell you they've got work to do. I've never seen any tractor do that in fact. Same goes for bicycles, they've got places to be. It's a means of transportation just like a car. If there is no bike lane, that's though luck for the cyclist (as it's a lot less comfortable) and for the motorists behind them, and a good reason for cyclists and motorists alike to argue for more bike lanes. Why should they alone bear the cost of shitty infrastructure (in time lost stopping by the side of the road every time a car is stuck behind them for +20s)?
    • markus_zhang 4y ago
      As dageshi said, yes if there is significant traffic. When cycling, under such circumstances, I usually stay between two parked cars until the traffic is better (that is usually after a switch of traffic light to red). But again I try to stay in reserved lanes, much safer.
• dageshi 4y ago
  Let's be honest, the real reason is that cyclists are frustrating to drivers merely by being cyclists. They're slow so they force the driver to either try to overtake or slow down everyone behind them and most people when driving will feel a pressure not to slow down the journeys of others behind them. So long as cyclists and drivers share the same roads it will always exist, some drivers will just be better about it than others.
  • dionidium 4y ago
    It also annoys me when somebody is moving too slow in the aisle at the grocery store, but I've literally never once seen someone flip out and yell at or physically push past someone for moving too slow in that context. We've had 100 years to examine the effects of driving on people's brains and it's...deranging, clearly.
    • ThinkingGuy 4y ago
      Relevant Oatmeal cartoon: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off
      • dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
        Lol, good one, never knew about the oatmeal.
    • Ajedi32 4y ago
      It's so common we even have a name for it: road rage. What it is about driving that induces rage in so many people is beyond me.
      • dionidium 4y ago
        This 1950 cartoon depicts Goofy -- an ordinary, kind, thoughtful citizen -- turning into a monster when he gets behind the wheel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwPSIb3kt_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwPSIb3kt_4 The phenomenon has been around as long as there have been automobiles.
• bborud 4y ago
  I drive a car, ride a motorcycle and ride a bicycle. For the most part I've ridden a bicycle to work for the past 5-6 years (and off and on in the 20 years before that). I live in Norway, so my experience is going to be different from the US or the Netherlands. Her are some observations as a bicycle rider in Trondheim, Norway. - There is a decent number of bicycle lanes in Trondheim. Some people complain about obstacles you have to deal with, but in general it is easier to navigate the city on a bicycle than in a car or on a motorcycle. Bicyclists have a lot less to complain about than car or motorcycle drivers if we're going to be fair. - Most drivers tend to treat me with respect when I'm on a bicycle. I can't even remember the last time I got into conflict with a car. I live at the end of an uphill section with sharp turns, which means I'll be testing car drivers' patience every single day. And yet they tend to drive patiently behind me until they can see that it is clear (or I wave them past if I can see far enough around the next corner). - I try to minimize interaction with pedestrians and cars when picking routes. I've ridden a bike in 3 cities and found that you can almost always find low conflict routes at acceptable cost in terms of time/distance. It puzzles me that a lot of my peers lack the ability or willingness to put some thought and consideration into their riding. (My default route to work separates me from cars 80% or so of the route, has perhaps 4-5 choke points where I have to cooperate with pedestrians and takes 22-23 minutes. I mostly choose roads parallel to roads with higher traffic. A more direct route saves me perhaps 2-3 minutes, but in my estimation, isn't worth the extra exposure to cars and pedestrians). - Pedestrians wandering into bike lanes tend to represent a bigger danger than cars. Many pedestrians are much less alert than drivers and less predictable. Especially those with their nose in their smart phones. - A big challenge in cities seems to be buses. I don't think this is out of ill will, but because they have a job that is orders of magnitude harder than driving a regular car. A bit of respect for their job goes a long way towards reducing conflict. Avoiding areas where buses need to navigate stressful traffic is usually the best approach. - In Norway most bicycle riders tend to behave OK. But there is a small minority that is aggressively entitled. These people are essentially assholes, but feel they have a right to be assholes because they ride bicycles and everyone else is always at fault. They are big on their rights. Usually male, a bit equipment-obsessed and usually between 35 and 50. I think of these as the "one percenters of bicycles". At least here in Norway, it is mostly down to attitude and willingness to cooperate regardless of mode of transportation. There are asshole drivers, but I get the impression that they are more of a problem in Oslo than in Trondheim where I live. Attitudes may be far more aggressive in the US and far less in the Netherlands or Denmark.
• Maarten88 4y ago
  Car drivers who hate bikes are dumb. Why don't they understand that every bike trip means one car less in traffic, thus freeing up space for their car?