My driver's ed instructor had a saying that cyclists should be shot! It was a comedy line, yeah, but he kept repeating it...
I don't personally feel this way, but I could buy this level of narcissism as an explanation (if you truly feel suicidal when driving, please seek help or take a bus).
There used to be a radio show in Massachusetts [0] I listened to a bunch as a teenager. They had a weekly segment for a while where drivers would call in and tell stories about how they attacked cyclists and then laugh about it. I think it was mostly just drivers expressing their violent fantasies, but one or two of the stories may have been real. It definitely dehumanized cyclists and encouraged violence against them. Later the same radio show, during the build up to the Iraq war, had an episode in which they said anti-war protesters should have their tongued ripped out at the root. Violence against groups they didn't like was a pretty common theme on their show and other radio shows.
Incidentally they were banned from Massachusetts not for advocating violence or dehumanizing the enemy of the day but for faking the Governor's death as an April fools day.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opie_and_Anthony#1995%E2%80%93...
As someone from the US, this phrasing confused me. "Bikers" has a much more common meaning here. If someone says they're going to a biker bar, they will not be putting on a spandex riding suit and peddling.
That said, I feel that both cyclists and bikers suffer from similar problems. I've always assumed that because of the high visibility of their difference relative to cars, people notice their illegal road behavior more. Cyclists blowing through red lights, motorcycles weaving between lanes, all of this is extremely visible to other motorists. The behavior then gets tied to the vehicle, rather than individual riders, and then people start to feel that these riders are always problematic.
I'm from the US and I disagree. Maybe in your community that's the more common meaning, but you can't extrapolate that to the entire country. Context clues should make it obvious what I mean anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRnxEZJCey4
So you think we dehumanize people we judge to be criminals? That would be unfortunate, if true. Sure, it might be reasonable to dehumanize the perpetrators of some heinous acts (serial murder being just one example), but weaving between lanes (which isn't even illegal everywhere to my knowledge) falls way short of that.
Yes. I mean, that's pretty much what the article posted here is about.
And this extends to other things that also fall far short of heinous acts: people in the US jailed for minor drug offenses are similarly dehumanized by many people in the "war on drugs" crowd.
Most roads are built primarily for motor vehicles, so when you are driving a car, you are driving on a road that you paid for specifically to drive your car on, and somebody else is leisurely (except for in certain big cities, most bicycling miles are done for leisure or sport) enjoying the same road for free, on a bicycle, putting themselves at risk and putting some of the burden of their risk on you (if they veer into your lane and you hit them, good luck trying to get out of that).
A grossly exaggerated analogy would be seeing people come to your apartment complex and using the garbage chute as a slide for their kids to play on. If the kids are playing in the chute and you put garbage down it and injure one of them, you’re on the hook. Imagine how this would make you feel, every time you see parents bringing their kids to play in the chute.
And cars also put the vast majority of the wear and tear on the roads. So while they might pay more overall, they don't pay their fair share compared to bike riders who fund the roads from their taxes. Bike riders (and people who don't use roads) end up subsidizing roads for people who drive cars.
Of course, on residential roads, they don't usually have many large trucks. Also, in areas with snow, it seems that snowplows actually cause most of the potholes.
I generally find the tone of the discussion about cyclists here surprising. I'm from Germany, and while there is animosity between cyclists and car drivers, both are equally accepted on all roads (except the autobahn, of course). There's a movement in big cities towards more and more specific lanes for cyclists. I don't own a bicycle myself, but with regards to a car's emissions and the omnipresent wasteful parking slots, I'm all for strengthening the status of cyclists on roads.
Fuel taxes (which never pay for all of a road - general taxes pay for them as well) don't even cover the disproportionate wear and tear for necessary maintenance from vehicles. So in reality bike riders and people who don't ever use roads subsidize the roads for car drivers. It's NOT car drivers paying for all of it, they don't even pay their fair share based on the ongoing maintenance burden they impose on the roads.
There really is no acceptable, rational reason for animosity towards cyclists. I think it comes down to the same gut instincts as racism, sexism and xenophobia - when there’s a problem people look for whatever thing seems most different in their current surroundings and blame that thing for the problem. It’s just a lack of thinking.
No rational reason for drivers in a road predominantly used from big vehicles to not like smaller, hard to see, vehicles with greater flexibility and much more fragile going around them?
The added care you need to have as a car driver, and danger they impose of accident, is not enough?
Especially since most of the time (e.g. in highways, interstates, etc) you get to have the road to just cars and don't have all this?
In many other countries those are even worse, including added state taxes on fuel, and so on.
The problem is that the drivers don't want to make their politicians build proper cycle-ways for bicyclists to safely travel in. If there were proper bike routes, then you wouldn't see cyclists on the roads slowing people down.
It's largely the same with your garbage chute example. If the complex (or the municipality) can't be bothered to build any decent places for kids to play, like playgrounds, then don't be surprised when they repurpose other things for that. Decent towns and cities always have playgrounds for kids to entertain themselves.
I don't doubt that your description of driver psychology is largely correct, but this statement in particular is pretty far from reality. In practice, it's astonishingly easy for drivers to get away with injuring or killing both cyclists and pedestrians, even when they are clearly at fault.
The problem with the idea that car drivers pay for the roads out of vehicle tax is flawed, since very often (not sure about the US, but this is true in the UK) the costs of roads are (a) much higher than annual "road tax" receipts, and (b) often met from local taxation or national taxes. So, you get to pay for them even if you are not a primary user.
In addition, when you factor in the health disbenefits (road casualties and air pollution) then motorists don't come anywhere near paying for the damaging effects they create.
I both drive and cycle, btw. You are right that (in many countries) roads are designed primarily for motor vehicles, but that doesn't mean other vehicles can't use them. Carlton Reid's book "Roads Were Not Built for Cars" (http://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/) has US and UK perspectives on this. It discusses cycling's origins and I find it interesting that in the 1800s cyclists were often seen as reckless and inconsiderate, and I wonder if this contributes to some kind of "folk memory" to this day, i.e. ideas being passed from one generation to the next without much in the way of critical analysis.
In any case, mistreating someone based on their mode of transport makes about as much sense as doing so for any other arbitrary reason. I really can't understand it on an emotional level.
Anyway, thanks for the insight: it is taken in the spirit it was offered.
This is true in the US as well; the cost of road maintenance in most states is not even remotely covered by the payment of vehicle, licensing, and fuel taxes and fees.
These are a stretch.
Pay for what you use. Even pricing.
I pay $200k in taxes. If I don't get to use these roads, they don't get to use my money on schools.
I've never seen a biker who didn't ride like an asshole in the city...
And I'm a pedestrian...