Cycling Safety

alexanderalexander

...and to make the point another way, if this thread had been entitled "Pedestrian Safety" and the OP had linked to a petition aimed at making Manchester's roads safer for pedestrians, would it have generated posts castigating pedestrians for getting themselves run over by crossing the road dangerously etc.? I think not, as everyone is a pedestrian so no one sees them as an "outgroup".

brat

alexanderalexander wrote: »

The reason why this debate always crops up in these terms and raises such strong feelings can perhaps be explained by a bit of social identity theory!

People who drive a car but do not regularly ride a bike -- which would be a majority of the UK population -- subconsciously see themselves as the "in-group". This means that when they see or hear about an individual motorist doing something bad (e.g. causing death by dangerous driving, drink driving, etc.) they castigate one bad individual for transgressing against the happy norm. Cyclists, however, are the "out-group", so anything bad done by an individual cyclist is seen as yet more evidence of how errant and awful the group as a whole is.

This sort of subconscious ingroup-outgroup thinking can be seen in negative attitudes to all sorts of minority groups, not just cyclists.

That's certainly part of the problem. And when the larger group sees the minority group gaining a minor (albeit illegal) advantage by doing something they are unable to do, it breeds an unnecessary resentment, despite the fact that the larger group pick and choose their own method of gaining illegal advantage which they see no wrong in.

Cloudydaze

brat wrote: »

That's certainly part of the problem. And when the larger group sees the minority group gaining a minor (albeit illegal) advantage by doing something they are unable to do, it breeds an unnecessary resentment, despite the fact that the larger group pick and choose their own method of gaining illegal advantage which they see no wrong in.

And what so many people fail to grasp is that (at least in congested towns & cities) the more people who cycle, the less cars on the road so the quicker & more efficient the journey for the remaining car drivers.

There is no downside to being respectful to cyclists!!

j0nathon2

And only today an incredibly stupid act by a driver:

I am going about 16mph in a 20mph zone. Ahead is a traffic island/pinch point. Now I know there is a car behind me, he's revving his engine to make sure I know.

I've moved out enough to ensure he doesn't try squeezing through as he will take me off.

What does he do?

He goes to the right of the traffic island, then facing an oncoming car, immediately swerves back into my path after passing it.

So he:

1. Travelled on the wrong side of the road
2. Endangered any pedestrians who might only look right and not left
3. Endangered an oncoming motorist
4. Endangered me by swerving back into my path

And what did he gain? Well he got to the junction 10 seconds quicker than I, I then filtered straight by him. I.E. he gained nothing.