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100% this. And Dutch cyclists are usually nicer ones. Where I live (Geneva, Switzerland), cyclists are very aggressive towards... well everybody. As a pedestri
by saiya-jin 4y ago
100% this. And Dutch cyclists are usually nicer ones. Where I live (Geneva, Switzerland), cyclists are very aggressive towards... well everybody.
As a pedestrian, I had few super close calls (5cm max) where a crowd of us pedestrians were going through the road on green light and cyclist zoomed at 30-40kph through cars on red light and our crowd, not even attempting to break. At that speed, crash can be fatal/disabling for both. Its not just theoretical - when my wife worked as doctor on biggest urgence here, they had a case where 40 year old guy was hit in same way by cyclist on pedestrian crossing, green light. He went into coma and died in 2 days. Red light is just invisible to most, unlike rest of traffic. As pedestrian I consider cars and motorbikes/scooters OK, but cyclists I avoid / look out for very carefully, especially when with kids.
They really act like everything belongs to them and they are above any constraints, be it red light, no-bike-parks for kids etc. You can't simply cross road because you as pedestrian have green light - you need to have green light and check that no cyclist is going through the town like its some post-apocalyptic wasteland with no humans around.
They are aggressive to the car drivers too - I had cases where drink cyclists were trying to damage my car by kicking into it (I was stopped on red light so no threat to anybody, no idea why). Damage to well parked car, also by cyclists. No love there despite obvious ecological benefits.
- pastage 4y agoWell you obviously made someone unhappy so there is a chance you are not as perceptive as you think. Statistics says that cyclists are like most other road users. The chance that the cyclists around you are different is a lot less likely than you cherry picking situations. With that said, people do stupid things there are always outliers.
- saiya-jin 4y agoI don't think you actually read what I described since you are completely oblivious to all facts stated by me and not even reacting on any of them, just dismissing everything as my fault. Looks to me exactly as cyclist mindset I write about - its not about me, rules are not for me and so on. How did I make any cyclist unhappy by just standing still with my car on red light in a row of other cars? How did I insult cyclists by daring to cross on green light as pedestrian? I don't talk about outliers, I talk about daily experience for past 10 years I live here. Consistently the same. As with cars, you don't notice normal drivers/riders, but a-holes you notice well. And a-holes on bikes I do notice practically every single day, unlike any other traffic on the roads which respects basic traffic rules.
- pastage 4y agoAs I said you might just be extremely unlucky. If not maybe take a step back and analyze why your world view is different from research on how mode of transport is no indicator of behviour. Crazy stuff happens in traffic for sure, but when someone is angry with you it is mostly because you have done something. The cases of random deliberate violence are so rare that they should not happen to you. If you want to live a life were you assume the worst about a completly heterogeneous group of people consisting of people from all walks of life and state of mind, that represents "people", you are free to make that choice but do not blme cyclists for that. This is my point: you might feel innocent all the time, but what you do is also interpreted by others they might feel the same thing. Again I do not really talk about you or your specific experience but in general, and what should be true for longer period of times. What you feel and experience is up to you, can't change that.