As a driver and a cyclist, it seems to me simply that many drivers have a tremendous sense of entitlement. Everything else stems from that, otherwise poor behavior would just be an annoyance instead of triggering actual murderous rage.
I don't mean to pick on you personally! It's a systemic failure of the community to keep its hivemind.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17731908 and marked it off-topic.
I’ve had cyclists plow through zebra crossings (crosswalks where stopping is mandatory) at full speed just inches away from me. Or blow through red lights for them that are green walk signals for pedestrians.
It seems to me to be precisely the opposite. It is extremely common to see cyclists have a full 4-5 foot shoulder to ride on, but they always choose to ride as close to vehicular traffic as possible. Sometimes even on the white line. By doing so, they endanger everybody, and the only explanation for this behavior is entitlement.
So, cyclists, please change my mind: when you have a wide shoulder to occupy, and you choose to ride so close to the left of it that your handlebars are in serious danger of being clipped by vehicular traffic, why? Why not the middle of the shoulder, or, god forbid, the right side of it?
edit: thanks for the enlightening replies.
Cyclists are not idiots. They are the product of roads that severely punish those that don't attend to drains, grates, glass and metal trash from car accidents strewn liberally in the margin of the road. They make tires called 'gator skins' for a reason.
Go ahead and ride in the gutter, do it tomorrow. And see if that bike makes it a mile, much less all the way to work.
I'll try to ride as far right as possible, especially on a busy street. But those other dangers are quite real, especially once you've picked up a bit of speed. In the areas I ride, cars can't really go much faster than bikes anyway (except they accelerate faster). So the relative speed of a car in motion is less than all the stationary stuff on the right that can hurt me. My city has a lot of cyclists and bike-friendly roads, so drivers are relatively alert and used to slowing down for cyclists. As a driver, the only time I find cyclists annoying is when they ride on the roads without shoulders or bike lanes and take a whole lane.
As someone who drives frequently and cycles everyday through London to work (and loves both activities) the perspective ive always shared is that cycling makes you see the worst in all other forms of transport. CYcling to to work there are days where I hate pedestrians, hate drivers and days where i definitely hate other cyclists. I've nearly struck careless pedestrians who were jaywalking looking at their phone and ive been struck by a car at a junction where i had right of way (and thankfully lived to tell the tale).
There are assholes in all camps, but I suspect its amplified dpeending on which activity youre engaged in
Cyclists need much more road width than you might intuitively expect, because we're less able to safely ride over debris or potholes. An obstacle that you would barely notice in a car could cause a cyclist to crash. The shoulder is often littered with debris, because the wheels of vehicles tend to sweep debris out to the edge of their usual track; the shoulder doesn't benefit from this sweeping action.
We know that we might need to swerve unexpectedly for reasons that aren't obvious to following traffic, so we want to make sure that we have sufficient space to swerve away from traffic rather than towards it. Riding well to the left gives the cyclist more control over their distance from passing traffic, because they maintain a buffer of safety that they can use if an inattentive or aggressive driver passes dangerously close.
Some cyclists might take this principle to an extreme, but the opposite is usually true - timid and inexperienced cyclists tend to ride right in the gutter rather than staking out a survival zone, severely limiting their options if they need to avoid a hazard or a vehicle is passing dangerously close.
On narrower roads without a shoulder, safe cyclists will take a variety of road positions based on the conditions; the reasons aren't always obvious to following drivers. We always keep at least four feet away from parked cars, because of the risk that someone unexpectedly opens their door in our path. Hitting a door is often fatal, because the top edge of the door is at around head height to a cyclist. We might tuck in to the right to maintain a safe distance when being passed, but we might also move out to the left of the lane to indicate to motorists that it would be unsafe to squeeze past us in the same lane on that section of road. Riding in the tracks followed by car wheels is usually safer, because those parts of the road are swept clean of debris and less likely to be contaminated with spilled oil or diesel.