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Most (80%) urban bicyclists ride like assholes. Blowing through stop signs, red lights, cutting across traffic, not yielding to pedestrians. Drivers can be bad

by 7e 3y ago

Most (80%) urban bicyclists ride like assholes. Blowing through stop signs, red lights, cutting across traffic, not yielding to pedestrians. Drivers can be bad too, but for every terrible driver I see 10 obnoxious cyclists. Maybe drivers made them this way. For the most part, though, they are just trying to minimize exercise/get somewhere as quickly as possible.

cmh89 3y ago
You're just noseblind because you also probably are a terrible driver. Maybe I'm wrong and you are the 1% of drivers who don't play on their phone, speed, and you come to an actual stop at stop signs, but I'm guessing you aren't. You see motorists speeding, which kills tens of thousands of Americans every year and it doesn't register as bad. You see a cyslists roll a stop sign, which kills very few Americans a year, and it goes in the cyclist-hate bucket part of your brain. It's just plain ol bias.
felurx 3y ago
Not an accusation, just something to keep in mind: Could there be some bias in that perception? As in, when you see someone riding their bike in a way that's correct and doesn't bother you, you don't really notice or even remember that. But when someone drives shittily, probably in a way that you have to react to, you do very much notice, get annoyed and remember that more.
- 7e 3y ago
  My dashcam saves every incident I see of a bicyclist running a stop sign, and stopping. I record without fail. The ratio is about 10:1. And you can’t observe an urban Critical Mass ride and say, with a straight face, that they’re not behaving like a bunch of pricks.
nedt 3y ago
And it's not a big problem. Assholes should ride a bike. I'd rather see more assholes in cars change to cycling than I'd like to see asshole on bikes switching to cars. Because an asshole on a bike or walking or using public transport is much less of an issue for others if an accident happens.
- 7e 3y ago
  I don’t think it breaks down like this. It’s the biking which makes them assholes. And these assholes can actually cause accidents. So it’s not consequence free. What is it about biking which causes this transformation of personality? Is it persecution by cars, or is someone doing a lot of physical exertion just not as nice of a person?

by 7e 3y ago

cmh89 3y ago

You're just noseblind because you also probably are a terrible driver. Maybe I'm wrong and you are the 1% of drivers who don't play on their phone, speed, and you come to an actual stop at stop signs, but I'm guessing you aren't. You see motorists speeding, which kills tens of thousands of Americans every year and it doesn't register as bad. You see a cyslists roll a stop sign, which kills very few Americans a year, and it goes in the cyclist-hate bucket part of your brain. It's just plain ol bias.

felurx 3y ago

Not an accusation, just something to keep in mind: Could there be some bias in that perception? As in, when you see someone riding their bike in a way that's correct and doesn't bother you, you don't really notice or even remember that. But when someone drives shittily, probably in a way that you have to react to, you do very much notice, get annoyed and remember that more.

7e 3y ago
My dashcam saves every incident I see of a bicyclist running a stop sign, and stopping. I record without fail. The ratio is about 10:1. And you can’t observe an urban Critical Mass ride and say, with a straight face, that they’re not behaving like a bunch of pricks.

nedt 3y ago

And it's not a big problem. Assholes should ride a bike. I'd rather see more assholes in cars change to cycling than I'd like to see asshole on bikes switching to cars. Because an asshole on a bike or walking or using public transport is much less of an issue for others if an accident happens.

7e 3y ago
I don’t think it breaks down like this. It’s the biking which makes them assholes. And these assholes can actually cause accidents. So it’s not consequence free. What is it about biking which causes this transformation of personality? Is it persecution by cars, or is someone doing a lot of physical exertion just not as nice of a person?