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Theres this weird animosity, people in cars like to get outraged at people on bikes. I can't pinpoint why, but its almost like a xenophobic reaction? Some peopl

Theres this weird animosity, people in cars like to get outraged at people on bikes. I can't pinpoint why, but its almost like a xenophobic reaction? Some people see a bicyclist and launch into a tirade about how aggravating the 'bad ones' are. Real self righteous stuff. Conversely being on a bike there is a real sense that people in cars are out to do you harm. Theres the people who try to rattle you - honk their horn at you to vent their outrage, completely unaware of how fucking loud those things are, or run you off the road, that sort of thing. The real unnerving stuff is the people who come close to murdering you by accident, just not paying attention as they maneuver their vehicles. One time I made eye contact with a woman while I pulled my bike out from under her SUV (just a foot or two under, right between the wheels on the passenger side, real lucky break for me) as she sped away - people do hit and run but I never experienced it as a driver and don't think a car ever stopped to see if I was alright let alone exchange details when I was on a bike. I never got the impression it was a class thing. I think part of it is that a bicyclist is not at all threatening and rather vulnerable in fact. The other part I suspect is just regular old 'not one of us' shit - if you listen to people they'll basically tell you how they think they should be allowed to wantonly mistreat bicyclists because they felt mildly inconvenienced at one point.

dageshi 4y ago
One of the unwritten rules of driving is to try and not hold up or inconvenience the drivers behind you. People get aggravated with large farm machinery holding people up but understand that machinery has a purpose and needs to get from A to B. The same people think Bicyclists aren't trying to get from A to B but are just out for a ride and happily breaking the unwritten rule. That is where the outrage comes from, they think the cyclist doesn't care about the irritation they're causing the drivers so the drivers decide to take it out on the cyclists.
xsmasher 4y ago
There's also big in-group out-group thinking going on here. People generally see members of the in-group as individuals like themselves, and the out-group as some kind of monolith. They have some empathy for the in-group but none for the out-group. If a driver runs a stop sign, it reflects badly on that driver. If a cyclist runs a stop sign, it reflects badly on ALL cyclists, etc. It works the other way around too.

dageshi 4y ago

One of the unwritten rules of driving is to try and not hold up or inconvenience the drivers behind you. People get aggravated with large farm machinery holding people up but understand that machinery has a purpose and needs to get from A to B. The same people think Bicyclists aren't trying to get from A to B but are just out for a ride and happily breaking the unwritten rule. That is where the outrage comes from, they think the cyclist doesn't care about the irritation they're causing the drivers so the drivers decide to take it out on the cyclists.

xsmasher 4y ago

There's also big in-group out-group thinking going on here. People generally see members of the in-group as individuals like themselves, and the out-group as some kind of monolith. They have some empathy for the in-group but none for the out-group. If a driver runs a stop sign, it reflects badly on that driver. If a cyclist runs a stop sign, it reflects badly on ALL cyclists, etc. It works the other way around too.