Author Topic: What have people got against cyclists?  (Read 12703 times)

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #75 on: 03 July, 2015, 09:40:27 pm »
Kim, you get treated like that in a bigger car if you stick to the Highway Code.

Lawbreaking is endemic and unpunished.
Yes, but a small car increases the amount of failures to yield, though not as much as a bike, and they're still looking for you.
I discovered this the first time I drove a big car.  Everyone was suddenly weirdly nice.... turned out they were just expecting me to drive like a bully.
As the owner of The Only Beemer With Indicators (;)) I have to agree. I suspect I get a little more "competitive" aggro from other Rep Car Wankers, typically Audis, but ignoring them is easy and on the whole I get a lot more space than in a little runabout.

For the moment we have two cars (don't ask why, it's complicated) one is a Peugeot RCZ, the other is a Peugeot Bipper covered in flower stickers.
The diffefence in the behaviour from other drivers -particularly on dual carriageways & motorways - is most amazing.
Many drivers treat the RCZ as a challenge to be beaten; whereas the Bipper is treated like potential roadkill. Both can be scary, but in different ways. I must admit to finding the extra acceleration of the RCZ a blessing when I need it. But unlike DibDib I find it's not the Rep car Wankers (maybe I'm too slow for
them) but the 18 year olds in Y reg Saxos.
So yes, to get back on track, they do see you, they do care what you are moving in /on, and some of them can be real tossers.
Too many angry people - breathe & relax.

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #76 on: 03 July, 2015, 09:48:55 pm »
Cannot see the UK building cycle tracks everywhere. There isn't the space or the political will power or the money.
This was my point.
Whilst population density isn't the only factor in the amount of space available, it is one of the important ones.
The Netherlands has a far higher population density than the UK.

As I understand it much of the Netherlands' infrastructure was created by stopping up through routes to motor traffic - effectively making them useless for cars, but great for peds & cyclists. Thus creating a dual network of motor roads and 'human routes'.
If you think about many of your local rat runs, town or country - a lot (if not all) could be closed off somewhere along their length to achieve this end in the UK without major expenditure or the country grinding to a standstill (despite what the Daily Paranoia would surely claim).
What we do here is build by-passes for town that are, in reality, just relief roads - look at Newbury.: Just about as clogged as before the by-pass was built.
Too many angry people - breathe & relax.

mcshroom

  • Mushroom
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #77 on: 04 July, 2015, 09:39:00 am »
Yebbut think of all those poor people who will die when the ambulance can't get through! It'll be carnage I tell ye!
Climbs like a sprinter, sprints like a climber!

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
    • Stuff mostly about weather
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #78 on: 04 July, 2015, 11:40:55 am »
Yesterday's aggressive driver was purely that - aggressive. A woman in late middle-age with a heavily made-up face and dyed black hair had been a couple of cars behind me for a few hundred yards. I was cycling along a residential road with cars parked either side so car no. 1 was unable to overtake. Eventually, just after I turned left onto a slightly more major road, driver no. 1 overtook but within 100 yards had to stop at a roundabout. I took primary but driver no. 2 hurled her car into the other lane, oblivious of whatever might have been approaching from the roundabout, but still didn't have enough power to get past me, instead, cutting in and forcing me to the left.

I remained in front and I'm afraid that my PCness left me with the expression "God, you're an aggressive cow, aren't you?"

I pulled out onto the roundabout in front of her, she overtook me on my left, turned into the same exit that I needed (my house is along that road) and promptly joined a queue of about 50 vehicles. My parting shot as I overtook was "Have a nice queue!" and within a minute or so I was home.

None of that was as a result of inattention or laziness. It was pure, calculated aggression borne of a prejudice against cyclists.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #79 on: 04 July, 2015, 01:12:06 pm »
You've drifted well off the original question, "what have people got against cyclists?" (the answer to which is obvious) and moved..

1. Line of tinned fat, poor people[1] will usually contain a few who'll have a problem with someone gliding past with a smile on - for free.

2. No amount of rule-following or smiling nicely will change this.

3. So ride your bike. Walk places. Catch a bus. Ditch the car. It's easy. You can do it today.

4. Revel in all the things drivers hate about you. Tell your pals how cheap it is. How much fun it is. How fit you are. Glory in being able to do the things they want to do; jump red lights, get pissed and ride home, take shortcuts along the pavements.

5. Or wait for someone to give us stricter driving rules, segregated bike lanes, rain free days. And wait. And wait. And wait.

[1] I can be very harsh about drivers. In reality, it's self-loathing as for a few years I was one. I spent 10s (maybe 100s) of thousands of pounds on driving and became fat and ill from it. Drivers, in addition to being impoverished and sickened by their compulsion, are also anti-social in the extreme - poisoning the environment, hounding people from the streets, and requiring that whole cities are rebuilt as racetracks for them.

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #80 on: 04 July, 2015, 01:20:19 pm »
None of that was as a result of inattention or laziness. It was pure, calculated aggression borne of a prejudice against cyclists.

Doesn't sound as though any of that was calculated, to be honest.

Ruthie

  • Her Majester
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #81 on: 04 July, 2015, 03:42:25 pm »
Sounds more like impatience, seeing everything slower than you as an obstacle to get past.

Cars aren't very good for your brain, are they, whether you're driving one or bouncing off the front of one  :-\
Milk please, no sugar.

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #82 on: 04 July, 2015, 05:41:49 pm »
Ditch the car. It's easy. You can do it today.
My life would be inconvenienced (not a total disaster, mind) without a car, so I'm prepared to pay for the privileged.

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #83 on: 04 July, 2015, 05:53:38 pm »
Ah, yes. Convenience - the drug of a nation. Heroin would be less damaging and less seductively addictive.

mattc

  • n.b. have grown beard since photo taken
    • Didcot Audaxes
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #84 on: 04 July, 2015, 06:06:38 pm »
...doth protest too much?


I find that when people leap into a discussion to defend their behavoiour,  its a strong sign of guilt.

Well done Sisti - admitting your problem is the first step!  :thumbsup:
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #85 on: 04 July, 2015, 06:07:57 pm »
Drivers, in addition to being impoverished and sickened by their compulsion, are also anti-social in the extreme - poisoning the environment, hounding people from the streets, and requiring that whole cities are rebuilt as racetracks for them.

I drive a car.  Does that include me?

red marley

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #86 on: 04 July, 2015, 06:17:09 pm »
The lives of millions of people are inconvenienced by people each thinking their own lives are made more convenient using a car.

Lack of access to clean air is inconvenient. Roadsides full of parked cars are inconvenient. Denying kids football in the street is inconvenient. Scaring children away from riding or walking to school is inconvenient. Preventing two people who see each other on opposite sides of a busy road having a friendly chat is inconvenient. Being kept awake by traffic noise is inconvenient. Taking two hours to cross a congested city is inconvenient. Potholes and broken kerbs are inconvenient. Being hit by an inattentive driver is inconvenient. Being scared off the road by speeding drivers is inconvenient. Having to clean the grime off shop fronts from thousands of exhausts is inconvenient. Forcing the police to deal with thousands of car-related crimes is inconvenient. Disposing of thousands of unwanted dumped vehicles is inconvenient.

Sometimes inconvenience is so normalised we forget we can do something about it.

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #87 on: 04 July, 2015, 06:50:06 pm »
...doth protest too much?


I find that when people leap into a discussion to defend their behavoiour,  its a strong sign of guilt.

Well done Sisti - admitting your problem is the first step!  :thumbsup:
I didn't admit to any problem. People have cars and will drive them. Just accept it. People have bikes too, and will ride them.

caerau

  • SR x 3 - PBP fail but 1090 km - hey - not too bad
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #88 on: 04 July, 2015, 08:33:30 pm »
I ditched my car last year - I'm so pleased to be (as someone put it above) decoupled from the daily grind of the commute - although I'd ditched that two years before I actually got rid of the car.  I'd actually found myself getting irritable and aggressive as a result of being fed up with that daily grind - traffic jams aren't fun.
We have out shopping delivered now.  I've hired a car once since.


Don't miss it one iota.


Maybe half an iota is that I now find it more inconvenient to get to audax rides.  That's really it.  Don't regret ditching it at all.


I would like to thank the wife for the suggestion that we get bikes that time in 2012.  I suspect she regrets it a bit - her bike is moldering in the garage whereas I now have 3 (+Fred mr forum bike still - anyone need it, I don't any more - hint hint?) and have really gone quite bananas about the whole thing  :-[ ;D
It's a reverse Elvis thing.

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #89 on: 05 July, 2015, 09:59:00 am »
This whole debate on the role of cars and how much we do or don't need them depends largely on where you live and work. Like many who live in a village, and whose nearest towns are small, I would have real problems without access to a car. Today (Sunday) I could stand at the bus stop all day and see no buses go by. Tomorrow I have to get my teenage daughter to and from school (roughly 7 miles away) and she does not want to arrive sweaty. Avoiding the busy bits of road would add a mile or two and would make it more hilly. She won't do it. So I take her and a neighbour's boy in the car, and the neighbour brings them back. Public transport would turn a short trip into a long expedition as the buses go to the wrong town and a change would be involved. School buses are not provided because we chose (and would choose again) a school for which we are just outside the catchment and the County Council does not want to encourage others to do the same.

(My wife usually cycles to work and back, and she loves it. Mainly rural lanes and tolerable traffic.)

Another thing that is different is fuel efficiency, which is much better on rural roads. And the lower density of traffic means air quality is very good. I drive a diesel with no concerns. We try not to make too many trips in the car, and it is our only car.

And returning to the original post, anti-cycling sentiment is fairly rare on the rural roads around here. Most of my riding involves no aggro with other road users.


red marley

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #90 on: 05 July, 2015, 10:40:27 am »
If cars were not an option for the more affluent in rural areas, we'd soon see good public transport put in place.

I'm reminded of Palaces of Gold.

Rules would be broken.
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken.
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold.



http://youtu.be/YpWluQXKTZk

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #91 on: 05 July, 2015, 10:42:34 am »
Drivers, in addition to being impoverished and sickened by their compulsion, are also anti-social in the extreme - poisoning the environment, hounding people from the streets, and requiring that whole cities are rebuilt as racetracks for them.

I drive a car.  Does that include me?

Yup!

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #92 on: 05 July, 2015, 10:54:35 am »
This whole debate on the role of cars and how much we do or don't need them depends largely on where you live and work. Like many who live in a village, and whose nearest towns are small, I would have real problems without access to a car

Indeed. Cheap, easy, and subsidised private motoring is what you enables to live in clean air of the countryside while depending on town for work, leisure, commerce, etc.

Most people living in the country these days are in exactly your position. Probably not realising how much the car both enables their lifestyle and also encourages it.

Quote
Today (Sunday) I could stand at the bus stop all day and see no buses go by. Tomorrow I have to get my teenage daughter to and from school (roughly 7 miles away) and she does not want to arrive sweaty.

Ahh, diddums.

Hey. Guess what? If you didn't have a car, you'd not need one. Either she'd learn to ride sedately, or you'd live somewhere which didn't require a tonne or two of resources and miles of bespoke concrete infrastructure to get from home to destination.

Quote
Avoiding the busy bits of road would add a mile or two and would make it more hilly. She won't do it. So I take her and a neighbour's boy in the car, and the neighbour brings them back. Public transport would turn a short trip into a long expedition as the buses go to the wrong town and a change would be involved. School buses are not provided because we chose (and would choose again) a school for which we are just outside the catchment and the County Council does not want to encourage others to do the same.

(My wife usually cycles to work and back, and she loves it. Mainly rural lanes and tolerable traffic.)

Another thing that is different is fuel efficiency, which is much better on rural roads. And the lower density of traffic means air quality is very good. I drive a diesel with no concerns. We try not to make too many trips in the car, and it is our only car.

Of course you have no concerns. Few people do. That's the bloody problem!

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #93 on: 05 July, 2015, 11:03:02 am »
Maybe one of the things people have against cyclists is cyclists telling them how to live? Just sayin'.

red marley

Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #94 on: 05 July, 2015, 11:06:22 am »
Motorised traffic does far, far more in telling me how I should live than does discussion on the Internet.

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #95 on: 05 July, 2015, 11:22:47 am »
People's choices of lifestyle will always depend on the options available to them, and the relative ease with which those choices can be afforded and achieved. Don't castigate people for choosing cars when doing so is in accordance with the way we have structured our society. If you want to change my choice, don't lecture me (you might find the reaction is not to your taste) but provide me with the tools and the infrastructure, both physical and political, to make a different choice. And if I still don't fall in line with your preference, tough.

Persuasion, not evangelism.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #96 on: 05 July, 2015, 11:36:05 am »
And that why people hate cyclists.  ;D
It is simpler than it looks.

caerau

  • SR x 3 - PBP fail but 1090 km - hey - not too bad
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #97 on: 05 July, 2015, 12:52:29 pm »
It's true that my need for a car is lesser than some, I don't live in a rural area (well I do nearly in fact) and I don't have dependents who need transportation, I do have good local public transport when the need arises.
However, that is also true for the vast majority of the 300,000 people who live within the confines of my local city (not the dependents bit admittedly).  I can't remember the exact figure but isn't it true that something like 90% of car journeys are of less than 2 miles?
When I used to drive it took me 40 minutes+ to drive 5 miles to work, on my bike it takes 18-20 minutes typically.  The car was vastly more expensive to run and was slower! A lot slower.
The vast majority of those I commute alongside would also be in this position if they chose to try it.  Most people live in the cities and most of them don't need a car as much as they think they do.
I'm happy to accept that many people do 'need' a car, but there are many many more who don't I suspect.
It's a reverse Elvis thing.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #98 on: 05 July, 2015, 12:59:45 pm »
I think there's jealousy, dislike of The Smug and the irritation people (well me at least) get when something fast-moving suddenly appears in the peripheral vision.

Cyclists are very much an out group.
Bicycles are seen as toys (and cyclists in the UK given piffling inadequate infrastructure to match).

Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: What have people got against cyclists?
« Reply #99 on: 05 July, 2015, 01:33:46 pm »
Maybe one of the things people have against cyclists is cyclists telling them how to live? Just sayin'.

Apols if my post read as telling someone how to live. It wasn't intended that way - more as a boggle at the weirdness of the world these days.

I don't think "the answer" is to tell people how to live their lives. Asking people to stop driving is about as realistic as asking the the clouds to stop raining. Both cars and rain can infringe my cycling idyll - but I just need to gnash my teeth a bit and get on with it.

Equally, no point in hoping for the govt to spend money on minority infrastructure. They only do what will get them votes from a majority - and the majority drive cars. That's just the way it is.

"The answer" is simply to revel in all that's good about cycling (and/or being car-free). Tell people about it. Open their eyes to some of their odd habits and dependencies. Maybe some will follow your lead. Maybe none will. But, whatever, you'll have had the benefit of riding a bike - and also have a positive framework in which to hold the experience. Which is far better for you than the "cycling is Hell, let me tell you a scary horror story - and everyone hates us sob sob" mentality that I keep coming across in cycling circles.