I think I may know why drivers hate cyclists in the UK...

daviesee

dylanfernley wrote:

well educated they may be, but intelligent ......

Intelligent people may not share your/our views, or agree with current laws.
Being wrong doesn't make you unintellegent, just ill-informed.

twist83

You very cleary stated in your first post 'Full tour de France outfit' and even posted a picture of someone in full lycra giving it some...

There are bad riders dressed in Lycra and normal cloths and also good ones as well. There are also bad drivers who hate cyclists regardless what they are wearing as well and vice versa.

Try riding in 'smart' cloths for numerous miles in anything other than walking pace and let me know how that goes....

If you are considerate when your are cycling on the road then it does not matter what you wear really does it? Act like an asshole when cycling and regardless if you are wearing a £10000 suit or a Borat Mankini then drivers gonna hate.

woodnut

One of my neighbours recently commented on how she'd seen this "typical bloody arrogant cyclist", filtering past her on the right while she was stuck in a traffic jam. Then she realized it was me, and thought "Oh that's alright"
Again, as per Davisee's point above, she's not some random idiot.

Roads, and the frustrations of driving, depersonalize us, and I don't think there's any simple solution.
I've often thought a huge TV advertisement campaign that stresses the fact that cyclists, motorcylists, peds, white van man, whatever, are all complex human individuals, might work?

pangolin

woodnut wrote:

I've often thought a huge TV advertisement campaign that stresses the fact that cyclists, motorcylists, peds, white van man, whatever, are all complex human individuals, might work?

Typical arrogant cyclist, thinking you've got the answers...

woodnut

pangolin wrote:

woodnut wrote:

I've often thought a huge TV advertisement campaign that stresses the fact that cyclists, motorcylists, peds, white van man, whatever, are all complex human individuals, might work?

Typical arrogant cyclist, thinking you've got the answers...

:oops:

bails87

I always find it interesting to watch the faces of drivers who moan about cyclists going past traffic, when I say "I assume you don't overtake cyclists when you're on a clear road then?".

"But.....no.....well....that's different though".

A friend complained about cyclists overtaking queues approaching traffic lights, because the cars would catch up and have to go past, having already overtaken th ebike further up the road. Again, I asked if he'd overtake a cyclist even though he knew there'd be a traffic jam up ahead.
"But.....no.....well....that's different though".

There's a mentality of having to get past. Having to push as far forward as possible.

You see it at junctions. If the road splits into two lanes, cars will fit down really small gaps, risking damage to their car and the one they're passing so they can sit behind a car 10 yards in front. Rather than just waiting for the lights to go green, at which point the car that's 'blocking' them will move and they can get through to the back of the queue without scraping their car. They don't realise that they'll get to where they're going in exactly the same time.

dylanfernley

surely these are examples of narrow mindedness/lack of empathy, selfishness , so the correct term would be under use of intelligence,as demonstrated by the neighbour, once anonymity was removed then her attitude reversed, do you think the next time she sees a cyclist going past her in traffic she will visualise you ? i doubt it---one can hope.

I think every road user should spend time as a vulnerable road user, a year on a moped for all car drivers would be a start, soon get their sixth sense in tune........

rolf_f

daviesee wrote:

dylanfernley wrote:

well educated they may be, but intelligent ......

Intelligent people may not share your/our views, or agree with current laws.
Being wrong doesn't make you unintellegent, just ill-informed.

Indeed. Infact, to some extent half the problem is that probably they've just never tried to look at the issue from the cyclists viewpoint. I recently suffered a mate of mine blathering on about how we were being held up by a couple of cyclists despite the fact that the slow traffic flow was caused by a tractor and that the tractor turned off before the cyclists reached it. He's an intelligent bloke but he was spouting utter misinformed drivel at that moment mainly because he was upset that on the downhills the cyclists were riding two abreast (and easily keeping up with the traffic).

airbag

daviesee wrote:

Intelligent people may not share your/our views, or agree with current laws.
Being wrong doesn't make you unintellegent, just ill-informed.

If you suspect you are ill-informed (which you almost certainly are on just about every topic unless you have good reason to think otherwise), and have no interest in becoming better informed, the intelligent thing to do is shut your trap. If you're open-minded and willing to suffer a few blows to the ego but learn something, fire away.

Unfortunately this seems to be a rare skill, people would rather just try and bludgeon a poor opinion into others than accept they were wrong (as you've said, there's nothing wrong with being wrong per se)
/irrelevant rant

phy2sll2

dylanfernley wrote:

I think every road user should spend time as a vulnerable road user, a year on a moped for all car drivers would be a start, soon get their sixth sense in tune........

Have you been to Italy, particularly the South? Everyone rides a moped as a youngster and yet the driving is ridiculously bad!

Daz555

I think culturally we have an aggression problem on our roads and all users seem to suffer from it. Cyclists and motorcyclists are of course the most vulnerable and suffer the most as a result.

JamesB5446

davmaggs wrote:

The link that you posted said that:

"Of the 91 minutes that the Dutch travel on average per day, 17 of those minutes are spent on the bicycle (19%)"


Edit; forgot to answer the other question. I wouldn't use Dutch style cycle lanes because I want to do more than a slow amble.

That's not how averages work.

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/speed

anonymousblackfg

So hold on, this morning we had two drivers beeping and shouting at us to move over when in 10mph trafic behind a bus when all the cyclists and them could not go anywhere. What or how we are riding had nothing to do with their treatment of us.

Glasgow Calum

twist83 wrote:

Try riding in 'smart' cloths for numerous miles in anything other than walking pace and let me know how that goes....

If you are considerate when your are cycling on the road then it does not matter what you wear really does it? Act like an asshole when cycling and regardless if you are wearing a £10000 suit or a Borat Mankini then drivers gonna hate.

Some people are getting me a bit wrong, I'm not saying its WRONG to wear lycra (I wear "technical" clothing too as it is impossible to wear civys for the length of my commute) I'm just saying I think it might be part of the reason (unjustified indeed) that its so "us" and "them" here in the UK.

It probably distances us from the car drivers, if they see joe bloggs in civys on an old school bike pootling along they think "there is a person" whereas if they see the "tour de france" guy, they probably think "there is a cyclist" maybe they assume he or she doesn't like cars, maybe they assume that they spend hours polishing their bike and are all about the bike. I'm just saying it probably distances each other as "communal road users"

I'm probably just confusing matters, hard to get whats in my head down on the page.

But to reiterate, absolutely nothing wrong with wearing the correct clothing, having the correct bike, having quality components. But perhaps, unfairly, it segregates us a bit?

dylanfernley

Callum-- go and have a proper think, write it down and read it before posting, then if you are happy with it ,fire away, at the moment you seem to be digging a hole..........

Glasgow Calum

dylanfernley wrote:

Callum-- go and have a proper think, write it down and read it before posting, then if you are happy with it ,fire away, at the moment you seem to be digging a hole..........

Would you care to expand on that? I think Iv'e made my point in my last post above clear enough. Not my problem some people love jumping on the defensive so easily.

Origamist

If you choose to wear non-specialist clothes when you ride a bike, you are less likely to be associated with sporty riding (which has negative connotations for many). By extension, some people believe that the mufti look helps to normalise cycling as just another mode of transport and helps to "humanise" people who cycle. However, if all of the lycra roadies in the UK swopped their Castelli skinsuits for Paul Smith outfits, I’d wager it would have a negligible effect on road user behaviour and attitude. What you need to do to encourage empathy and mutual understanding is to get more people riding a bike. If and when this happens in the UK, you will get far more people riding in everyday garb, like in the Netherlands and Denmark as the cycling demographic will diversify.

dylanfernley

I'm probably just confusing matters, hard to get whats in my head down on the page.

look at your post title-- i think i know why.......

then after defending your lycra faux pas, you post the above, i am not trying to be nitpicking, just that i don't think you are doing yourself justice, and sometimes it takes a bit more thought than(one) a stream of consciousness type of post.

FWIW-- how people dress is pretty irrelevant to others, -- on the car driver attitude, well thats well ingrained and reinforced culturally, and until the tipping point comes when bikes are the way to go , this will remain a problem, things are getting better, those of us who were cycling 20, 30 years ago remember a very different attitude to cycling than is prevalent now.