Thoughts I would throw in the rare POSITIVE motorist sorry.
On July 4th, I was doing a long ride to “visit” my Dad at the Georgia National Cemetery. Going from intown Atlanta to Canton is urban to surburban to rural. Any I was coming of a small road and had to ride about 1/2 mile on a 4 lane before turning left onto another two lane. I was careful and looked behind me to make sure I could left. All clear, still out my arm out pointing that I was moving over to the left turn lane. A pickup truck suddenly came out of a shopping center and cut me off as he crossed the road.
I didn’t think to much about it because it wasn’t that close. A little ways down the 2 lane, my Varia went off and I looked back and saw that truck coming up. I thought oh no, here we got. The guys slows down, rolls down his window and says, “I’m really sorry I cut you off. I didn’t see you at first and then had to get to get across the road! I could t believe it. Said thanks so much and gave him a thumbs up. He then turned around and went back to the main highway. So he actually went out of his way and took 5/10 min to track me down and say sorry. My faith in humanity had a boost!
And 100%, I never ride without the Varia. And I have a small mirror on my left drop.
A buddy just told me a story a couple days ago about an altercation he had.
He was riding along on a two lane road, and a guy in an SUV passes him. Then immediate slams on the brakes and makes a right hand turn (we’ve all been through this right??). My buddy was so close he couldn’t stop in time to continue forward, and was also forced to turn. He yelled at the guy and asked aggressively “what the hell dude?”
The guy got enraged, flipped him off, called him a name, etc. My buddy just rode off, as we do, knowing that even if we look skinny in our kit, we could probably rip most of these guys out of their vehicles and put them in the hospital. But it isn’t worth it and not the right answer for anyone.
So my buddy continues on, and in a few minutes, the guy pulls up next to my buddy. Says “pull over”. He said it calmly enough that my buddy felt safe to do so.
When he stopped ahead, the guy said “look, I just wanted to apologize. I acted like a jerk back there cause I didn’t see you and I was taken by surprise. So I’m sorry” My buddy, surprised, thanked him and they both went their separate ways.
I had someone pull out in front of me as I was braking for a pedestrian. The car nearly hit the pedestrian and I slide by the car because they slam on their brakes.
I threw up my hands in disgust and the guy goes out of his way to pull up next to me and say we’re all in this together and deescalate.
While chatting he refuses to admit being in the wrong and since the lane narrows for parked cars I am in the center since my left is coming up. The guy nearly collides with an oncoming car and cuts me off to avoid it.
This here happened in Germany. I guess some drivers use their cars as weapons everywhere in the world. The driver got a 21 month suspended sentence Jagd auf Radfahrer - YouTube
I’ve spent a lot of time in the Stuttgart area. The Schwaebisch can be a bit strange but I have always had good experiences with them. The behavior in the video you linked is probably pretty common in the US… in Germany not so much.
I think this is key: “a culture that embraces being outside, in the environment, using your legs for your transportation”.
Or any other human powered transportation. Sweden is in the middle of Norway and Denmark when it comes to this stuff. They still have a strong dislike for cyclists here, but yet not enough to warrant any direct hateful action.
Either way, Denmark I think is the best example of what a country that embraces cycling looks like. When you’re in town, you see bike traffic as the main stuff, cars being second.
I mean, even Wout van Aert praised the bike lanes in DK when we was there riding before the tour.
On the other side, you also have countries that have bad infrastructure for cycling, but where cyclists are very much accepted as a part of traffic. Such as Spain, France etc.
There is also a feeling of pride in the cycling culture. I have been riding in the Dolomites and Mallorca, where drivers have been behind me for 3-4 minutes waiting for a safe pass. That doesn’t happen anywhere else…
I’m in a pretty urban area. You can see the city is starting to realize that with its every growing population and already clogged arteries, cars can’t solve everything.
So there are some efforts being made to add more transit and more cycling infrastructure. I usually ride alone…or maybe we’ll be 2 people riding togther.
I’ll start super early in the morning usually and don’t mind riding on the road where infrastructure is non-existant. I’d say over the 5-6 years of riding (3 of those commuting, pre-covid) i’ve had one bad situation where a car, at a red light, visibly rolled towards the curb to stop me from passing the line of cars (aka filtering)
Other than that, i’d say nothing else has happened really. Maybe one honk here or there. Even when i go ride onto the “country” roads.
But in my online tri-group chat, this guy tells me that about every week he gets coal rolled (texas) and i just don’t understand. To him its now a regular occurence but with the current price of gas i don’t know that it would be worth it for me to do that to someone.
I’m not sure what the correlation between race and road fatalities is, but it’s hard to believe that one man hit walking down a 55 mph road with no shoulder/sidewalk/lights at night is proof of anything. Seems to be quite the leap.
They are really using that one case to highlight the issue….the data speaks for itself.
Cycling is 4.5 times more deadly and walking is 2.2 times for Black people on American streets as compared to white people, the data says
Now, this isn’t really surprising when you think about it….Black people largely live in areas with fewer infrastructure advantages (sidewalks, bike lanes, shoulders bike paths, etc) and also have a higher urban living percentage.
We see what we want to see when it comes to this problem. Confirmation bias is real. If you want to find racism everywhere, you will. Same with right-wingers and Woke folks.
I spent most of the last 30 years riding in the Denver/Boulder area, and I’ve toured all over the country from Arizona to Montana to Maine to Georgia. I’ve been cussed at by hippies as many times as I’ve had coal rolled at me by good ol’ boys. The rudest drivers are always those having the worst day, in the biggest hurry, or the angriest at life, no matter who they are or their politics.
The kindest drivers I’ve ever experienced were in rural Alabama and rural Montana while touring with my dad. The rudest were in Boulder County. Do with that what you will.
For me it’s all over the map where I’ll find rude or nice drivers. I think most gravel riding I’ve done the drivers are nice. Likely because there’s little traffic so it’s easy for them to pass and also because they’re not generally doing 50mph on those roads anyway so they’re in less of a hurry.
Interesting article. Yes, really not surprising. I’d be interested to know how much the car-focused infrastructure actually benefits those local communities. I know many more people own cars in the US than in Europe, but poorer people generally can afford cars less. That could be a double whammy - less pedestrian-friendly infrastructures in those communities that actually have fewer cars and are forced to walk more (to eg get to public transportation).
That is a good point…many members of those communities are reliant on bikes as transportation to work, school, etc.
Also worth noting that we tend to think of people like ourselves when we talk about cyclists being killed on the roads……but we are the minority of that group. The data includes kids getting killed while riding, etc. There have been a number of kids killed recently in Chicago while riding their bikes.