I think it’s important to remember the consequences. I heard a press conference in the UK where a police rep was asked about belligerent cyclists, and he replied something to the effect that those people are definitely annoying, sometimes upsetting, and rarely lethal. The police intend to enforce rules against them with the same urgency as anything else that is annoying, sometimes upsetting, and rarely lethal.
Then he changed the topic to cars, which are the number-one non-disease killer worldwide, and are absolutely a police priority.
There is some weirdness here which supports your point. Deaths on the road overall are falling and in most of the world pedestrian deaths by car are falling, but not in the US. Pedestrians killed by cars have been rising in the US for years.
This factor only works if your thought process is only as someone in a car. As a pedestrian or cyclist a car misbehaving comes with a high risk of death.
Yeah, for me the takeaway is the way this psychological phenomenon applies, how a group that one does not belong to is tarred by the worst behaviour of that group’s members. Cyclists are visibly not motorists or pedestrians, and they seem to be a clique. Which you don’t belong to. Thus easy target to casually hate.
This same phenomenon applies to music and fashion. To ethnic prejudice. To Staffordshore terriers and pit bulls. And to Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes, to an extent.
EDIT: another thing I notice is that when you leave the USA and go where cycling is more normal, the hatred also fades. Cyclists aren’t weirdos or deviants any more, but co workers, friends and so on. But also the way bike lanes are better laid out in other nations also means less conflicts as cyclists try to fit in.
That is the advice I give people who are learning to ride in traffic: assume that the cars are trying to kill you.
I didn’t get my drivers license until my 30s. My main mode of transport was a bike in a big city. I feel that my observation that bicyclists and drivers are crappy is valid.
Cars are absolutely more lethal. I’d be happy if my city just banned all cars (as unlikely as that is).
I was trying to address the OP topic though which isn’t what mode of travel is more dangerous.
It was why do so many people people hate cyclists? It not because they are more dangerous. It’s IMO due to attitude of a minority of cyclists that leave a lasting emotional memory.
If someone almost hits me with their car due to negligence but they clearly had no malice toward me. I’m going to think Ive made mistakes. Ive been driving and been distracted for a moment and was just lucky I didn’t intersect with someone at the moment.
On the other hand if I am nearly hit by an aggressive cyclist and they follow up by yelling stay out of my fucking way and flip me off. I wasn’t in danger of being killed but this will stick with me much longer than the car incident. And when the topic of aggressive cyclist comes up that pent up anger is going to come spilling out.
And it only takes a small fraction of a group acting like assholes to gives the larger group a bad rep as unfair as that is.
For every “I never see a car blow through a red light” scenario, one needs to understand that this discourse is extremely USA-centric. One only has to cross the southern border into Mexico to see an entirely different car culture where people blow through red lights on a regular basis – often up to 5 (counting with Mississippi) seconds after the light changed.
This is not just anecdotal. It is constantly observable every single day. But there are not enough police who are present, or even paid enough, to care.
Trucks: you would win in a crash, so most people steer clear of you.
Cars: there are a million of you; when people refer to “traffic”, they’re talking about you.
Pedestrians: you’re considered to be like cats underfoot; however, since we’re all occasionally a pedestrian ourselves, people cut you slack.
Motorcycles: people think you’re just like bikes, only motorized and possibly armed.
Bicycles: people think you’re all crazy hipsters and they hate you irrationally.
Skaters: not only do people think you’re crazy hipsters, they think you’re playing on toys. In addition to thinking you aren’t allowed to share the road, people also try to literally run you off the road.
Yeah, but you know what I do see when I bike around?
I see a lot of you fuckers going 10+ the speed limit. I see you nearly hitting people three to five times a ride. Like, just random people walking along and you almost kill them and never even know because you’re staring at your cellphone. And that turn signal you didn’t use? Good thing the person behind you wasn’t staring at the phone when you swerved in front of them, because YOU were too busy paying attention to the electronic lady screaming “TURN RIGHT NOW” to notice you cut off the minivan with kids who waved at me. Because THAT happens five to six times in a three mile ride.
I’ve said “hi” to the person you almost turned into in the crosswalk because the light turned red as you were coming up the turn lane and we BOTH knew we didn’t stand a chance at getting out of your way even though they had the walk and I had the green.
It’s funny how all these car drivers even have TIME to notice the bikers doing things with how fucking distracted they all seem to be AT EVERY SINGLE MOMENT.
EDIT:
And it’s worth noting: I live in a city that actually HAS a biking culture.
Isn’t “Fundamental Attribution Error” really just stereotyping? I guess you could narrow it down to anecdotal stereotyping maybe? Like this is a George Carlin skit where we are putting cute technical sounding names on something every human does, because we are humans.
If a person expands their “Fundamental Attribution Error” past something as basic as cars vs. anything else on the road, they are gong to quickly end up in a gray space of examining things that are very uncomfortable to deal with. I’ve always like the idea of the Golden Rule, treat others as how you want to be treated (or insert your own variation of it). But that quickly wears thin when a person’s own experiences point them to pattern of one group not doing that, even if the people at fault are a minority of that group.
As I get older I realize my father was very right about a lot of things in life. One of his wisdom’s was that only other people can hurt you.
How many drivers do you see routinely driving 5-10 mph above the speed limit, then? Or going through on a stale yellow that really turns red before they actually get there?
Neutral studies of all this show similar rates of rule breaking across modes. It’s just that the red light thing is obvious to a casual unfocused observer.
I never claimed cyclists were more law breaking in general than car drivers, only that in my city they are vastly more likely to blow through red lights (a statement I’ve updated to mean “mid red light” as opposed to right after the green/yellow).
When I’m in Canada, I live in a building on a busy street at a section bracketed by two small streets that only allow vehicles to turn off or onto the big street the (they only feed into the larger street, they don’t cross it).
Anyway, both streets have traffic lights, but because (I assume) drivers know there’s no cross traffic…well let’s just say there have been plenty of days where I wouldn’t be able to finish reporting one red light runner before the next one went through.
Also, at one of those two intersections is an elementary school.
I’ve been knocked to the ground in sidewalks several times by bicyclists (I don’t drive or ride a bike so walking is the primary way I get around), but yes, not really injured.
But note one signal difference between the Wheelmen’s “Good Roads” movement and the Auto Club and auto lobbyists’ proposals:
The cyclists and wheelmen wanted better rural roads, but they wanted the American Farmer to pay for them. Indeed, much “Good Roads” pamphleteering is dedicated to convincing farmers of the economic benefits of “good roads”, so they would tax themselves to pay for said roads.
By contrast, the Automobile Association and other auto lobbyists campaigned for fuel taxes, tire excise taxes, and other measures that could proxy mileage-based user fees (preferably without toll gates).
They also took the lead, early on, in privately providing comprehensive highway signage and other motoring amenities, paid for by member dues.
The automobilists were willing and able to pay for their desired infrastructure improvements; the cyclists wanted someone else to foot the bill.
Needless to say, the Auto Club proposals caught on better.
You say that like these are separate things. As a cyclist and pedestrian, I would argue that anyone who drives a car in a way that endangers me becuase they are late for work or are having a bad day is a fundamentally or morally bad person. I know real life sometimes gives us all a bad day, but don’t use that as an excuse to spread me across your bumper.
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