When I experience / see people diss cyclists, I'm sad for them. It implies they cannot empathise with others (me). My physical and mental health are better thanks to cycling.
I'm a part-time cyclist (I stopped using cars 5 years ago) but after seeing a few bad ones on youtube videos I can understand the rage sometimes. They just cut anywhere without any regards for traffic.
That said a lot of people are crazy on roads, motorbikes, cars too (probably more often and more dangerously).
I take a different attitude towards seeing unruly cyclists - for me, it's about damage limitation. Assuming that 5-10% of people are idiots and behave like idiots on the road, we want to ensure that they aren't behind the driving wheel of a car as that's 2 tonnes of speeding metal that causes a lot of damage to others when driven by an idiot. We want to take those idiots and get them onto bicycles as their speed and mass will be drastically lower and also they'll be likely to reap the rewards of cycling like an idiot which usually ends up hurting the cyclist more than anyone else (even hitting a pedestrian will often result in the cyclist coming worse off).
So, every idiot cyclist you see is an idiot not in a car and thus a reason to celebrate them.
You're absolutely right! However, the main difference is that cyclists pose much less danger to other road users compared to motorcycles, cars, or trucks. Of course, there are accidents where a cyclist collides with a person and causes serious injuries, but when a motorcycle, car, or truck collides with other people, the consequences are dramatically more severe. This isn't to justify cyclists doing whatever they want in traffic, but they usually only endanger themselves. If they collide with a car, the car might get a dent, which can be fixed within a few days, whereas the cyclist might struggle with injuries for weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime.
I agree too, the chance of death with bikes is ultra low. A car is a 1 ton metal moving press ...
But since I got my driver licence, I understand the anger, bikers/cyclist can come at any angle / corner and you'll feel responsible if you hit them (it made me feel weird realising this as a cyclist), they don't have to respect as much rules.
That's why my heuristic is to stay smooth and try to make the road as a cool shared space (gesture to communicate you took driver nearby into account) when you have to use it.
I still need to buy a dashcam though.. cause there's always a risk of crazy angry car driver.
A 5 pound cat jumping in the middle of highway can still cause a pileup despite lacking the energy to cause any damage by itself. People don't want to run over cats and will swerve/break to evade it, losing control and hitting other cars. People don't want to run over other people (on bicycles or not) even more than they don't want to run over cats.
This one surprises me because it seems far more common to me that cars hold up traffic than bicycles. When you look at images of traffic jams it's almost always other cars in the way, not bicycles.
I suppose maybe it's a city/countryside thing? Cars are great at long straights, but they take forever to safely clear an intersection compared to a bicycle -- and they block most of the road while they do.
It’s “normal” to be held up by traffic. It’s novel being delayed by a cyclist. Plus you’re doing something important and their leisure is getting my way!
When a cyclist does something unexpected, it’s extremely dangerous; pay no mind that they’re the one in 95% of the danger. When a fellow driver speeds, rolls through a stop sign, or fails to yield it’s lost in a sea of normalized deviance. No matter that car accidents are a leading cause of death.
Yup. I have coworkers driving to work complain to me about some cyclist they met on the way to work. Like, why..? I'm not responsible for that just because I also bike. It's not like I harass every driver I meet at work just because some driver killed a child again in the city.
And all their interactions with stupid drivers? Quickly forgotten a moment later.
I’m a mountain biker, I even internally complain about some road cyclists.
The ones who take up far more of the road than necessary, granted because they can, and slow you down prior to traffic lights meaning you hit a red.
But when you hit a red, they swerve onto the pavement, across the junction with the pedestrians and then onwards beyond the red light while I’m still sat at the red. All while not dismounting from their bike.
In the UK, where I live they should stop at the light and not pretend to be a pedestrian. But they’re also entitled to the road, but when they ride in a manner that means I would have to veer well into the oncoming lane to get around them it’s just not worth it. A wee bit if there’s no traffic is fine, but not too much.
Of course you should use the opposite lane when passing? Hence it shouldn't matter to you where they're placed in the lane, as you should leave ample space when passing anyways and move over.
Isn't it also better for you that the cyclists get a head start, thus you're not stuck behind them in your scenario?
Agreed. It's also why I stopped using main streets, I drive on small, abandoned paths as much as possible, and when I get near others (car or pedestrians) I slow down or let everybody do what they want until I can branch out again. Any issue you may have with others will become a senseless shouting contest.
You're mainly correct, but if you have a look at busy times in a bike-oriented city such as Copenhagen then there are big queues of bikes/trikes at traffic lights. Maybe "paused in traffic" would be a better description of them though.
I agree with your sentiment, but traffic lights pre-date cars - the first ones were around the Houses of Parliament (UK) in 1868 and there were manually controlled ones in the U.S.A. at the beginning of the 20th century before there were large numbers of cars.
However, modern traffic lights tend to be designed exclusively for motorised traffic and here in the UK it's annoying because we don't have a "turn left on red" rule, so cyclists can end up waiting at a red light even though a left turn would be perfectly safe. I got caught out the other day at a set of lights that didn't detect me on my carbon bike, so I sat patiently waiting (the other roads were busy) until I figured out that my turn had been missed and had to carefully find a gap to make my turn.
The other thing is that stopping and starting on a bike takes significant energy and effort, so a straight road with many lights can turn an easy commute into a chore which is why it's common to see cyclists going through red lights. Interestingly, that kind of red-light jumping is allowed under some jurisdictions e.g. Paris.
Having a bunch of cyclists take up a whole lane width wise will always be frustrating. I bike every day and drive reatively rarely, but I understand the frustration with cyclists. I am also scared to death that one day I’ll turn a corner on a country road and get to decide between heading into oncoming traffic or plowing a group of cycling buddies doing 75% of the speed other vehicles normally will do on said country road.
It's very rare for cyclists to be holding up traffic for anything more than a few seconds and usually only in specific scenarios (e.g. going up a hill on a narrow road). It's far more common for motorised vehicle congestion to be the thing adding delays to people's journeys and bizarrely, there's a common mindset amongst drivers to always want to overtake cyclists even when just a cursory glance ahead shows that they can only make a tiny bit of progress until they join the queue at the next junction. It's referred to as Must Get In Front (MGIF) and annoys me when cycling as often an unsafe overtake will be performed by a driver and then I'll go filtering past them a few seconds later - why overtake when it makes no difference to your journey time?
We should all just look out for each other. Mostly follow the rules, but don't let common sense go abroad.
There are so many cyclists in berlin that just go in front of all the cars at a red light, even it's just one car in front of them. I know that this car can accelerate way faster than me and drives way faster, why would I want to block it and make the driver mad?
Yes, if the road is congested I might pass the cars too, because I realize I am faster, but everything else just doesn't make sense to me.
I agree -- bike boxes are quite miraculous. They're the one instance where paint actually is infrastructure, and I use them any time I can just to show other cyclists that they are allowed to.
But to add some nuance to the argument: bike boxes are an improvement over filtering up on the side of the road. Doing what (I assume) GP did and taking the lane behind waiting cars is about as safe, because any other cars coming up from behind ought to see you as they roll up to you, being that you are in front of them and not to the side. (And they're already paying forward attention thanks to the car ahead of you.)
That's true. There are too many different cases, that's why I am saying common sense. If there is a bike box, go ahead and use it. If there is none, then be prepared to not be seen by the car. Traffic is just complex.
PS: In my experience, if there is a bike box, then there is also often a separate bike lane. I was mainly speaking about roads where there is no real bike lane. If there is one, then most things just work out fine.
"We should all look out for each other" is unfortunately often code for "cyclists should yield at all times and have a sixth sense to avoid getting killed by impatient or distracted drivers".
I was biking in the cycle lane the other day, going straight. A car came up next to me, and suddenly turned right to get off the road. I got the tingles just before and suspected it, so I managed to break and avoid being right hooked.
I shared the video online, and most comments I've gotten is how I should've been more careful (I was, hence no accident..), how I should have avoided the car's blind spot (the driver pulled up and put me there, and should've known I was there..) and lots and lots of comments about how I just should be a team player and let the car pass.
Everyone used the "we should all look out for each other" to victim blame me..
>"cyclists should yield at all times and have a sixth sense to avoid getting killed by impatient or distracted drivers".
And that is literally true. Yes, cars should be more careful, but it's a fact that it's easy to overlook a cyclist. As my motorcycle instructor said during our first theory lesson: "So you are all here because you have suicidal tendencies, right?". And he was right. And it's even more true with cyclists. No one says that this is a good thing tho.
That's why laws like in Denmark and the Netherlands (not 100% sure if it's both countries) are needed. Cars are automatically at fault (not always 100% though) when there is an with a cyclist or pedestrian as it is expected that the "stronger" person has to take more responsibility.
Cyclists don't hold up traffic. They are tiny and very easy to overtake if they are too slow. Cars hold up traffic because they're too big to overtake anything.
When I experience / see people diss cyclists, I'm sad for them. It implies they cannot empathise with others (me). My physical and mental health are better thanks to cycling.