Can't say much about the US, but around here I suppose if the cyclists would stick to the traffic regulations there would be somewhat less aggression against them.
In the last 2 years of riding bikes and walking the dog, my two closest calls with cars have been on the sidewalk during walkies.
Getting angry when someone cuts you off is different to being angry about cyclists just existing.
personally i just cycle on footpaths, i'm not really interested in what the law says. me getting hit by a car is a much more dangerous and likely situation than me riding into a pedestrian, and police aren't going to abandon their car on the road to chase me on foot.
I don't like some cyclists because of their blatant and unsafe disregard for the rules.
It's not uncommon to see:
- Cyclists ignoring red lights
- Cyclists ignoring stop signs
- Cyclists riding on a busy sidewalk
- Cyclists yelling at pedestrians to move rather than stopping at an intersection as required
- Cyclists taking up the entire lane and not permitting cars to pass
- Cyclists going the wrong way down a one-way street
Some of the worst offenders are e-bike users, who can move very fast and in unexpected ways. It's no fun to have someone silently fly by you from behind, inches away, at 20mph while they are riding what's basically a motorcycle on the sidewalk.
I frequently walk in the city, and scooters/bicycles are far more of a hazard than cars. They often can't decide whether they want to be pedestrians or cars, and they often don't follow the rules for either, putting everyone (including themselves) at risk.
This is explicitly permitted in most places and is often the only safe thing to do. In a situation like that, if you can't overtake such a bike (or car, or tractor) safely, you must wait until it is safe. The bike (or car or tractor) has the right to the entire lane.
First search result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuhblb_9qec
"mounting the pavement" temporarily isn't the same as driving on it for multiple metres.
If you claim never to have seen that happen, then you must live in a hugely law abiding place. I live in a small town with a pretty old average age, and I see this regularly here. In London it was worse. Maybe as a cyclist you look out for these things more, or maybe you just get to see them more due to your positioning.
No they're not, because they carry an order of magnitude less kinetic energy.
> Cyclists taking up the entire lane and not permitting cars to pass
as they fucking should, this is the safest thing to do, you're in a metal box and if I let you pass you'll do it too fast and too close
> Cyclists ignoring red lights > Cyclists ignoring stop signs
In civilized places bikes are explicitly allowed to treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yields.
> No they're not, because they carry an order of magnitude less kinetic energy.
Yeah, go ahead and tell them that after they hit you on the sidewalk or going the wrong way down a one-way street.
I'm not sure if this is serious, but it's one of the more obviously false claims I've seen on Hacker News:
https://everytownresearch.org/reports-of-road-rage-shootings...
>Experiencing aggressive driving on the road is not uncommon—roughly eight in 10 drivers surveyed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported having at least one incident in the month before the survey.
In response to your other comment:
>angry about cyclists just existing.
I don't think these people are angry at cyclists per se at all, they're angry about a perceived anti-car sociopolitical shift, and cyclists are just a visible artifact of that.
Believe me, people ARE angry at cyclists - it might be for the reasons you suggest, but their anger is directed at the humans on the bikes.
That was about 5 minutes of time out of a two hour peak period - I'd be amazed if you didn't get several hundred an hour if you sat there and counted. There are, alas, no cameras on this junction - probably because MetPol would be doing nothing but processing these violations 24/7...
It strikes me as insane that road with so much pedestrian traffic, lined with shops, in a part of London where only something like 30% of the population drives, has so few provisions for pedestrian or cycle safely. With pavements barely wide enough for walking, covered in obstructions, and road markings that looks more like an IQ test, than anything helpful.
Exactly that one, yes.
> I avoid going near Old Kent road in anything except a car
Yeah, I used to cycle it a fair bit 10-15 years ago but I wouldn't bother these days either (plus there are decent cycleway options for avoiding it.)
Many drivers imagine that bicycles are not permitted in roads and some take it upon themselves to make my life dangerous in an effort to enforce that.
Car people see anything 'weird' and just lose their minds to the point that killing another human is an acceptable outcome to them. It's extremely reliable. Get a bike and you will find out exactly how many psychopaths are out there.
EDIT: I make it a point of honour to try to stick to the Highway Code whether on my bike or in my car. Still random drivers harass me when I'm on my bike.
I had someone lean out of a car and try to put a plastic bag over my head when I was cycling once. I would love to hear what I was supposed to have done to justify that.
You just have to look at how the press drone on about "lycra clad louts". There's an obsession with identifying us by what we wear as a justification for violence.
That's not hurt feelings but actual broken bones and blood violence.
Off the top of my head I can think of several newspaper articles calling for barbed wire to be strung across cyclepaths in the UK (Hahaha, joking of course!) and reports where that happened and someone was seriously injured. All in the same paper (Hahaha, no connection obviously!)
YouTube is full of people in cars attacking cyclists and it's got fuck all to do with breaking traffic regulations.
Not excusing the other crazy stuff you've put up with. That's insane.
Not sure why that would make me difficult to drive around. If I'm on a motorway I overtake and when I've finished my manoeuvre and I just move over again.
If I see an amber light then I do what the Highway code suggests and stop if doing so won't cause a problem. If I see a red light definitely stop.
Edit since you edited yourself (only their first sentence was in the comment when I first replied):
> The fact that even those who don't drive cars hate cyclists says something. As a pedestrian I see myself much more endangered by cyclists, which swerve everywhere (including the pavement), than by cars, which stay within their lanes.
I've only seen swerving cyclists everywhere when infrastructure for cycling is poor or non-existent. Anywhere where there's a minimally decent infrastructure I don't see cyclists sharing space with pedestrians on sidewalks, nor swerving crazily around.
Maybe it's an issue with not providing appropriate infrastructure instead? If there weren't roads you'd see cars not following lanes, etc.
This is simply how cyclists behave in the absence of incentives to act otherwise.
You don't solve this problem by having more infrastructure, you solve this problem by brainwashing the cyclists and drivers to follow the rules, and enforcing the rules.