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this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Fuck Cars
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Even in the UK, it often feels like drivers are slightly bloodthirsty for bikers. I've largely just gone over to walking as it feels not worth the extra speed to paint a target on my back.
As a person in the USA the hate seems regional. Large cities and more urban suburbs tend to be better about it.
I don’t think cities have anything to do with it. I live in an area with nearly a million people that has bike lanes people regularly use as turn lanes despite the signs.
I think it has to do more with multimodality, i.e., using multiple modes of transportation. I use the car for some things, the bike for others, transit for others. That makes me appreciate the dangers and frustrations of each whenever I use each. For example, when I cycle, I know what a driver can't see; when I drive I know that a cyclist can be startled or that a bus should go ahead of me at a light. A city has a higher chance to give people the opportunity to experience multimodality, that's all. Depends where of course, but on average, city means more options than not city.
I live in the Philly suburbs and drivers around here are great about bikes, very respectful and safe and generally giving us cyclists a wide berth. The problem is with that "generally" qualification - I'd say that 99.9% of all drivers are very careful around bikes, but that means 1 driver out of every 1000 cars is a dickhead. Since I'm passed by probably 200 cars during a 25 mile ride, that means I can expect about one risky road incident a week, which seems about right given my experience as a cyclist.
Ironically enough, I'm a school bus driver and a highly disproportionate number of my near-death experiences on a bicycle have involved school buses.
Politicians here have been stoking this anger for years now. Drivers feel entitled to do shit like this all the time (I speak from many personal experiences). He probably didn't mean to kill the guy, but likely felt totally justified in jumping the curb and "trying to scare him". They forget they're driving fucking tanks around and justify their aggression with platitudes like "well I'm bigger, he should get out of the way".
Are you his lawyer?
When you run someone over, you DO NOT have the defence of "I didn't mean to kill anyone", and if you have to ride over a curb to do it, you will never be able to convince me that wasn't the plan from the start.
Running this man over wasn't an accident. It wasn't an oopsie-doodle where someone got mildly hurt by an inattentive or incompetent driver.
This was "I'm big and I don't like this person for X reason, hahahaha run little man. Wait did that motherfucker just tap my car with his fist? OH HELL NO GET STOMPED ON BITCH"
I'm stereotyping the internal monologue, but the point is the same. "jumped curb, injured cyclist, cyclist hits car, driver decides to run him over in response" there is no way to spin that as "it wasn't intentional"
Idk if you bike on roads often, but I do, and I have heard this argument so many times after almost being hit (or ACTUALLY being hit) and it just pisses me off when I hear it. Nothing against you.
Woah woah there friend. We're on the same side here. I cycle my kid to school and then onto work nearly every day and I'm regularly on the receiving end of some seriously scary and dangerous assholes behind the wheel. They feel entitled to the whole damned road, and I'm sure they fantasise about running us over. I've been tailgated, screamed at, nearly clipped multiple times by people "just wanting to catch the light" or some nonsense. They are dangerous assholes and should be banned from the city.
I'm just saying that if you're going to pretend that everyone behind the wheel of a car is fully aware that they're pushing two tonnes of steel and glass around at high speeds, then you're not working with facts. Cars are literally designed to stoke the illusion of comfort and immobility, that you're just "on the road" without a Giant Metal Cage around you. You take a human and put them in that situation they will inevitably drive like fucking psychopaths. That doesn't mean that he shouldn't go to prison forever, but it's important to understand where this coming from.
The problem is the normalisation of a dangerous pattern.
I like to bike and think cars are a net negative to our society. I still get frustrated when a biker is legally using the lane.
What is wrong with me.
Nothing wrong with being frustrated at a slow moving vehicle ahead of you.
But you should be more frustrated that the cyclist doesn't have a dedicated and protected lane where they can go their own speed, and instead they're forced to contend with 2 ton SUVs driven by (typically) the most high-strung Karens with murderous intent.
I agree. I think we should take over multi-lane thoroughfares in towns and give a dedicated bike lane with green space for shade.
Plus if I know driving is gonna be a nightmare I will bike note or take public transit.
Never going to happen though
Christine is a fantastical horror novel that depicts a car whose innate bloodlust is not hindered by the need of a driver.
UK has a car first culture where everyone driving thinks they are above anyone else who isn't driving. They believe they have a right to move at their maximum allotted speed without being interrupted by another human. I constantly have people speeding up into me when I cross the road or veering into incoming traffic while I'm on my bicycle to scare me with my life.
Other European countries I visit are not like this, not sure how it happened
When I was younger I used to road rage and break car rear windscreen wipers who played chicken with my life and cycle off while they were in traffic. I wish I was fit enough to continue doing that
I was in a taxi last week and the driver sped up at a crossing pedestrian. I wanted to throttle him.
I was in Dorset yesterday and the difference between drivers there and here in London is big. Here they're happy to risk anyone's life to shave a few seconds off their journey. In Bournemouth, they were stopping at green lights to let us cross, even when there were no other cars behind them. I was keeping an eye out for cyclists too and the drivers were giving them room and stopping to let them turn, etc.