The strange psychological phenomenon that explains why people hate cyclists

boing
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I’ve cycled in London (UK) for 30 years. My mindset is when I’m on the bike, I’m an ambassador for all cyclises. Same on my motorbike.

So I stop at reds, behave courteously to everyone, but also take my place and position as a valid road user to be respected. London’s roads are actually now pretty well designed for the interaction of bikes and motor vehicles.

Why? As a mini cultural program. Create a social environment where other cyclists see me do this, and have to make a very conscious decision to be knobbers. If they run a red I’ll shout “don’t run the red you dick”.

Why? Because of the seething anger some people feel when they see non-confirming behaviour. People can’t help it - they’re stuck in traffic and a cyclist flouts the rules, they get annoyed and remember it for a long time. Next time they’re impatiently close to a cyclist, it might be me. I have a wonderful bulging lumbar disc from that kind of interaction. Just wonderful.

Show some respect, folks. It’s about mutuality. Road infringements are as bad as urination infringements.

And if you drive offensively with me - heh - you’re likely to get a damn good dressing down. Mutuality, and all.

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I think the difference is that Fundamental Attribution Error describes how certain negative stereotypes are created and reinforced. Getting into the specifics of how our brains make these sorts of decisions to give more weight to negative stereotypes, and again adjust the weighting based on how often we encounter the subject of the stereotype, and so on.

Oversimplified, I think it’s using cyclists as an example of how you never notice something until it impedes or annoys, and then it is either accepted if you don’t have power to fight back, or accumulates negative associations if you feel like you can fight it. Cyclists, unlike cars, are seen as vulnerable, so they quickly gather negative vibes.

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Now you’ve made me hesitant to post this:

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I feel like if I walked down the sidewalk swinging a sword wildly in front of me two things could be true at once:

  1. Probably people would give me a wide berth and no one would get hurt.
  2. I should be stopped.

The act of creating a dangerous situation and leaving it for others to avoid falling into feels like it should be unacceptable. I’ve found it a little disturbing how people saying things like, “cyclists pull onto the sidewalk when the road is inconvenient, drivers don’t do that” and others say, “sure they do.”

What this is showing, though, is that it is very possible to have a culture around use of a vehicle that is more or less negligent and more or less hostile to other humans. And I think when people debate cyclist behaviour vs. car behaviour they should keep in the mind that different realities exist in different localities.

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It’s even easier in the UK. Left hand turning lane leading up to a roundabout is full of cars? No problem! Just drive up the empty RH-turn lane, and drive a full 270° round, then you have priority and have now jumped most of the queue! (And now you’re stuck in a queue because of whatever was causing the blockage in the first place.)

Also, I think I only see about one car/truck drive though a red light per-year, which makes me think that not obeying traffic lights is more of an American problem. Plenty of people will accelerate through an amber light, but if you go through a red you’re going to get three points on your license (or more). It’s just not done.
I do see cyclists doing it occasionally, but they generally edge out slowly and check there’s no cross traffic. Illegal, but not particularly unsafe.

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As one of the resident Dutch blokes I have to give our view, I guess.

First of all, it is a cultural thing. Just look at the tourists here who step blindly into a busy cyclepath and then get angry at a cyclist on a cyclepath who objects to a pedestrian blocking their way (…). It is quite clear that to them a bicycle is always in the wrong, no matter what.

The main problem in many countries is that there is very little infrastructure for cyclist-commuters that is not specifically designed to avoid confrontations between traffic streams that have very different needs and priorities. That means every time they cross paths (…) it is a confrontation. (Bicycle gutters or a few fancy lines on asphalt does not an infrastructure make…)

The solution is to design roads and paths in such way that there are few interactions and that where interactions happen either speed is very low or right of way is blindingly obvious to both parties.

The second problem is experience, and most modern (fwiw) countries have crossed an important line here: When children cannot cycle on the roads outside anymore they never will and then their first own experience in traffic is when they drive a car. Their first traffic lessons will be about driving a car.

They never saw a traffic stream from the eyes of a cyclist and they will never experience what that is like.

When you start experiencing traffic as a child on a bike that gives you a bit of perspective. When you later drive a car you will remember that, and you might even think about, you know, children of your own or your friends and family that may be out now, navigating the car traffic that you now are.

A good example, that bikers would also recognise, is why cyclist on some roads might “suddenly” swerve or keep to far to the middle. Looks dangerous, right? But on a bicycle or bike things like drifts of leaves, trash, metal drain covers, deep puddles, etc. are a serious hazard. Especially if there is car close behind you who might kill you if you spill… so you swerve or maybe even deliberately take up a large bit of road to maintain a safety zone around you.

Or maybe they noticed someone sitting in a parked car up ahead and don’t want to get doored.

Now you know :slight_smile:

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For some people (academics, say, or people who want to be able to actually talk to each other and so on) having the “cute technical sounding names” for things every human does is rather important.

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They’re probably largely the same people at different times.

That’s the thing - we act like “cyclists” and “drivers” are categories of human. We even refer to ourselves as “cyclists” and “drivers” at times when we really shouldn’t be either (e.g. when typing out comments on a message board - a time when we really ought not to be operating any kind of vehicle at all).

But when you drive, you represent just yourself.

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If you’ve never made a mistake driving a car, that makes you the first human in history to do so, and some kind of superhuman god.

Welcome to the Fundamental Attribution Error!

In case you interpreted what I wrote to mean “having a bad day and thus lashing out at you, no that isn’t what I meant. I meant they were distracted because of something bad going on with them that day. Please steelman my arguments, rather than strawmanning them.

I am not interested in the bikes v cars content, as I said twice. I only wished to clarify the misuse of informal logical fallacies being displayed. You may carry on being mad at cars and/or bikes without me now.

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I was so excited to see that this article got so many comments … only to find the conversation was more about shitty cyclists, and not about the cognitive biases.

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You poor, sweet summer child…

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Still. That should never happen. It’s infuriating. You could have been hurt or in the least your clothes ruined. It’s too bad. We could all co-exist, but selfish individuals are all too common, so we can’t.

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All of this.

It’s a key fact that a society where people generally conform to traffic laws is safer for everyone, so it’s important for everyone who uses any form of transport to stick to those laws, because eroding those norms is literally putting yourself in danger.

This applies especially to the more vulnerable road users, because you have most to lose from people not obeying traffic laws. As with all laws, enforcement can only go so far, and being prepared to regulate your own life in order to get along with other people is just the basics of living in a society.

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Yeah, these cyclists are the ones that piss me off the most, because they make the rest of us look bad.

I’ll take an early red light or do a sidewalk skip if it means I’m significantly less likely to be killed by a car. Aggressive self-defense can save your life. The assholes who bike aggressively, even towards other bikes, are just that: assholes.

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Things that are true for large swaths of the population:

  • They wish they could commute by bike, but are terrified to do so.

  • They know that commuting by car is unhealthy for them, but feel they have no choice.

  • They know that commuting by car is unhealthy for the environment, but feel they have no choice.

  • They are terrified of hitting a cyclist with their car.

Given these multiple layers of “Oh how I wish I could avail myself of that option”, which along with the fourth point are all rooted in some combination of primal fear and lack of agency, how much subconscious resentment would we expect to see on display? Any explanation that doesn’t take these factors into account seems incomplete at best.

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just to add to both your good posts:
after so many days (or hours) of cycling when outnumbered by roads full of massive, potentially crippling vehicles the drivers of which don’t want you there, think that you don’t legally belong there, some of whom aggressively cut you off or honk etc, and many many more of whom are visibly not paying attention and casually threatening your life almost constantly, a cyclist’s attitude can go from zero to fuck-you! really easily.

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yeah… about that term:

Automobile interests in the US took up the cause of labeling and scorning jaywalkers in the 1910s and early 1920s, by then the earlier term of “jay driver” was declining in use.[8][9] The word was promoted by pro-automobile interests in the 1920s, according to historian Peter D. Norton.[10] Today, in the US, the word might be used incorrectly with substantial confusion.[11]

Originally, the legal rule was that “all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way”.[12] In time, however, streets became the province of motorised traffic, both practically and legally.

@Jeroen_Metselaa
great post. and to buffer your observation: in the US, bikes for children are common but seldom used for transportation. they are fun recreation but not usually allowed by parents to leave the neighborhood. not only is it a kid-empowerment issue tied into helicopter parenting, it is also as you say: bicycles are not seen as valid transportation.
I’m old enough to remember biking and walking to school being normal. now everyone is certain that unattended children will immediately be hijacked by perverts (despite that type of crime being less common nowadays) so driving and bussing is usually mandatory. thus car culture is further reinforced…

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I think that’s a really good point and helps define this ecosystem of resentments. Everyone has a story about how someone using a different mode of transport did them wrong. So now every time they can they make some other person in that mode to suffer. And now those people in that other mode have a reason to mess with yet other people. and thus revolves the circle of resentment.

Queue: The Lion King song…

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great point

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We can choose to read it as data that reinforces the premise.

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