Hacker News Reader

Comment by bgentry | Hacker News Reader

Despite the predominantly helpful info in your comment, you are also making assumptions about the parent commenter having an animosity and "cars first" mentality that may not be accurate or justified. See their comment elsewhere in the thread:

> I've been riding bikes in the city since I was 6 years old.

View on HN

> you are also making assumptions about the parent commenter having an animosity

Not so. The OP comes right out and says this,

> As it is bicycle activists seem to think everybody is responsible for the safety of cyclists except the cyclists.

Which is wrong, shitty, and straight up victim blaming.

See Forrester's insider criticism of cycling culture

https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a32257789/vehicular-cyclin...

It's not an assumption, it's very obvious in his rhetoric that he prioritizes cars and the laws built for those cars over cyclists and any potential laws built for them. Hence, cars-first.

Even if he rides his bike everyday, he still views the world from the perspective of someone driving a car.

I'm the grinch of cycling ever since I blew my knees from doing rides that went up a mile vertically when I was 20. There was that time I was in agony riding home from a Ross Perot rally.

I went through a phase when my knees hurt just looking at a bicycle. Even today I avoid any hills, off-road or anything challenging.

I'd just like to point out the subtle use of language to objectify motorists and thus make it easier to ignore their side of the issue when these discussions come up. You can see it very clearly here:

"laws built for those cars over cyclists"

If one wishes to engage with people who like using cars, instead of dismissing or ignoring them, use motorist instead of car. I hope our societies are still human centered enough that we can agree that cars are used by people to do things, not the other way around.

I can't tell if this is parody or not.

It ignores motorcycles, who at least in my head is why the term "cyclist." is used. Trucks, Cars, bikes, cyclists. Last two slightly more humanized because you can see the human fly off of the thing in an accident, trucks and cars, driver wearing a seatbelt is part of the machine.

It’s a classic trope in these conversations: “I’m an avid cyclist, but…”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com