honestly? in all the words, I lost what you were saying. i ride with about, what?, 300 different cyclists over the year. I haven't met one that fits all those characteristics, never mind just two of them.
i repeat: no cyclist, no matter how shitty a rider, ever has anything to do with the way a car driver treats cyclists on the road. she doesn't exacerbate it either - whatever "it" is. that's because there is nothing at all about bike riders' behavior that is different than car drivers' behavior. indeed, car drivers probably drive more unsafely and break more laws in one car trip than a cyclist dreams of doing on a five mile ride. there's exacerbating going on, too: because the driver engages in unsafe behavior while sitting in 2000+ lbs of metal and plastic.
As Vanderbilt and those who study the sociology and social psychology of driving point out, the driver has to, with every drive, forget that she is driving a vehicle that cause so much damage to herself and others. Vanderbilt describes into the ways in which the roads, the safety devices, the traffic calming devices, the traffic pattern software that controls the flow of traffic all work together to create an overwhelming social structural force that aids the driver in forgetting the danger.
The rationale drivers provide in local forums and surveys is that riders deserve being hit or hurt or run off the road because cyclists behave badly and earn their injuries/deaths and/or because they are stupid to ride next to 3500 lb vehicles traveling 45 mph.
But, as anyone who studies drivers knows, cyclists engage in the exact same behavior as car drivers. The problem is the way that car drivers - the dominant majority - think about a minority, non-car drivers. They notice all the things that bike riders do wrong and ignore their own and other car drivers' bad and/or illegal behavior. This is typical of the way any dominant majority treats a minority, well-documented in the sociological literature.
as I stated, not one car driver ever drives to work or school or shopping without breaking the law and/or engaging in unsafe behavior that jeopardizes himself and/or others.
Given this dynamic, you rarely, if every, hear this sentiment about a driver killed or maimed in an accident: "well, that's too bad about the dead driver, but car drivers are always speeding, rolling through stop signs, texting while driving, driving while drowsy on prescription drugs, speeding up at yellow lights, cutting off others, unsafely merging, unsafely passing, etc. what can you expect!? they deserve to get hit because they don't drive safely or legally in the first place."
but that *IS* a common sentiment from car drivers about bike riders. it is heard at town forums, voiced in surveys, expressed at public debates, called in on phone lines to radio and tv programs. And, it isn't chastened by death and disfigurment suffered by the rider. Indeed, locally, when a guy tacked the paths of cyclists on country roads, people quickly rushed to his defense that he only did what all other car drivers only wish they dared do.
I just got back from riding those same roads - no shoulder, substandard width highways (less than 12 feet - a cyclist needs 5 feet within which to maneuver -- and I can assure you that the hostility is palpable.
Here's a story. We were riding along and I was taking a count of how many drivers clipped us passing too close - less than 2 feet away. It was about 1 out of 6 - backed up by other surveys on same subject.
Big ass suburban clips us and then pulls into the driveway about 1000 feet away. Yes. That's right. It's important to pass too closely when your destination is 1000 feet away because, being in such a badass hurry to hug your children or some shit, you must save a fraction of a minute of your time to be home that much sooner lest someone notice that it's 1:36:01 vs 1:36:02
Even better, driving in front of this woman's home, she was unloading her kids and groceries. The person with me was riding the white line which is a dangerous thing to do because there is no shoulder, only a ditch. there isn't one stitch of dirt, gravel or asphalt past the white line. Instead, it's a cliff into the ditch. Occasionally, there is a patch of asphalt completely missing - in other words, a hole about 6 inches or more - enough to send you head over heels into the ditch.
Riding partner hit the hole and went for a roll in the ditch in front of this woman's home. She stepped away from her car and asked: "are you ok?" She was all concerned and worried for the cyclist who she had just almost caused to do the same when she passed too closely.
Go figure.
There's no figuring. Tom Vanderbilt makes this really clear, citing study after study of the way that driving is inevitably going to turn most drivers into assholes toward other road users because they no longer think of them as humans, but as minority Others. This has to do with social structure, with engineering, with culture. It's *structural*. The nature of driving on the kinds of roads we have encourages her - practically demands her - to treat cyclists this way. To drive differently is to incur the wrath of other drivers, for one thing. It's funny how human social life works that way.
>That was the extent of that aspect of the wider argument I was making. I
>don't know a single leftist who thinks that leftists acting perfectly will
>draw the public to their side. I know a lot of liberals who do.
must have been that other lbo list I was reading.
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)