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Comment by michaelcampbell | Hacker News Reader

There's a few things going on that I see (in the US), and probably many I don't.

* Most US roads are not bicycle ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well.

* Cyclists have been given a right to be on these roads, which can't safely handle them, by legislation.

* Having them there does impede traffic that the road WAS designed for.

* The US culture has devolved lately into a "my rights" based one.

* Both the car drivers who have historical precedent with "rights to be there" and the cyclists with the newfound legislative "right to be there" willfully fail to recognize the rights of the other.

* Both sets of drivers blame the other for the lack of adherence to safety and traffic laws. Both are correct.

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I’ve been a bicycle commuter for 25 years, primarily in the US (Minneapolis, Santa Fe, Bay Area) but also 3 years in London. Your last 3 points are much more important than the first three, there’s simply an attitude problem in the US, and it goes both ways, both drivers, and riders (and even pedestrians) are militant and angry about the space they feel entitled to.

Compare to London where the streets were designed for neither automobiles nor bicycles. In London there’s a culture of acknowledgement that we all have to make do with the available space. So pedestrians spill into the street, cars occasionally have to go up onto the pavement (aka. Sidewalk) and bicycles achieving critical mass happens naturally during peak times. London is 10 times as congested as SF and yet everyone is 10 times as calm.

It’s amazing to me the success the auto lobby had in America a century ago to create a culture where the default is that everyone should be able to drive super fast and have parking available in every square inch of developed land, and anyone who uses anyone who uses any other form of transportation is an uncivilized pleb deserving of second rate accommodations at best.

There is absolutely weird entitlement problem in the US with regards to drivers, and motorcycle riders feel it, too. It becomes clear when a common response to supporting filtering (motorcycles being allowed to move to the front at intersections for visibility reasons) is, "Why should they get to go first?"

Which, of course, is completely irrelevant complaint regardless of ones views on filtering. There's this notion that a driver is entitled to both their place on the road and some sort of ill-defined spot in a queue that isn't there.

I don't buy your characterization of car drivers' rights as having "historical precedent" while cyclists (only) have "newfound legislative" rights. Cyclists' rights to use public roads go back at least as far as motorists' do, and the subsequent poor design of roads with respect to cyclists' rights did not annul them.

If anything, it is the more recent (and sensible) restriction of cycle use on certain major roads that is "newfound".

> Most US roads are not bicycle ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well.

This is true, but many of the roads in my hometown that people insist were "built for cars" predate the automobile, which is just to say that they can be (and have been) changed to support whatever we want them to support.

This is also true, and they DON'T currently support cars + bicycles. That they can be made to do so is interesting, but irrelevant to the current situation.

It's relevant in countering the assertion that roads were built for cars. A lot of roads were built for horses, but nobody thinks that's a compelling argument for, well, anything.

As an interesting side note, in my area "road diets" were recently proposed, turning a four lane road into 2+turning lane+bike lanes. The planners had data indicating that this would lead to less congestion and higher safety... and many people lost their minds in fury at the idea of giving up lanes to cyclists.

Where is this? I like this

https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/local/2016/06/23/ci...

Cool, thanks!

As a US citizen I am the biggest hypocrite when it comes to cyclists/pedestrians in the road. When in a car I think "They'll get out of my way, I'll win in a fight" while riding a bicycle I think "What are they going to do? Hit me".

Dissonance mitigation is a fascinating and scary thing. Observing it happen in oneself is a real treat. Kudos for being so honestly reflective.

Cognitive dissonance and how we respond to it is the main topic of the first episode of Sean Carroll's new podcast Mindscape. I found it very interesting.

That's such a normal way of thinking in the US's transportation culture. What's chronically absent from it is any sense of common courtesy.

So, inevitably, we end up in an inherently acrimonious situation: Everyone smaller than you is treated as nothing but an obstacle to be avoided, and everyone bigger than you is understood as a threat to your safety, and everyone about your same size is regarded as that asshole who just cut you off, or that asshole who needs to speed up and quit holding up traffic, etc.

We've become such misanthropists when it comes to transportation that it's even common for people to aver that they don't like using public transportation because they don't like how it brings them into regular social contact with people they don't know, and nobody thinks that attitude the least bit strange.

It's really quite odd, when you step back and look at it. Sad, too.

This sounds more psychotic than hypocritical to me. "I'll win in a fight", is this a normal way of thinking? I'm a US citizen and I can honestly say this thought has never crossed my mind while driving. My thought when passing a cyclist is to make sure I'm giving them enough room and hope I'm not doing anything to make them fearful. I thought most people were this way, and it seems obvious to me that it's the right way to act. How prevalent is this other, "I'll win in a fight" attitude?

* Most US roads are not car ready. They weren't designed to have mixed vehicles, they weren't built for it, and they don't do it well.

* Motor vehicles have been given a right to be on these roads, which can't safely handle them, by legislation.

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