
Dehumanization of cyclists predicts self-reported aggressive behaviour to them - anonymfus
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369847818308593
======
dfxm12
I wonder where this begins. Is it learned at home (from a parent driver who
complains about bikers a lot)? Is there a popular TV show where they keep
making fun of bikers? Do people have one bad experience with a biker and just
apply that to all bikers?

My driver's ed instructor had a saying that cyclists should be shot! It was a
comedy line, yeah, but he kept repeating it...

~~~
gonational
I would like to start by saying I’m not against bicycles sharing the roads in
anyway; I’m just attempting to explain the rationale for this kind of thinking
in many people I know personally (in South Florida this is a hot button
issue).

Most roads are built primarily for motor vehicles, so when you are driving a
car, you are driving on a road that you paid for specifically to drive your
car on, and somebody else is leisurely (except for in certain big cities, most
bicycling miles are done for leisure or sport) enjoying the same road for
free, on a bicycle, putting themselves at risk and putting some of the burden
of their risk on you (if they veer into your lane and you hit them, good luck
trying to get out of that).

A grossly exaggerated analogy would be seeing people come to your apartment
complex and using the garbage chute as a slide for their kids to play on. If
the kids are playing in the chute and you put garbage down it and injure one
of them, you’re on the hook. Imagine how this would make you feel, every time
you see parents bringing their kids to play in the chute.

~~~
Schaulustiger
Huh, so you paid for the road and the cyclist didn't? I'm not an American, but
I don't think there's a road tax for car owners in the US.

~~~
efnx
It’s funny that the parent poster mentions this - it’s likely that either the
cyclist has a car, payed in the same manner as the driver and is in the moment
using the road for “leisure or sport” - or the cyclist really needs to use the
road and bike for transportation.

There really is no acceptable, rational reason for animosity towards cyclists.
I think it comes down to the same gut instincts as racism, sexism and
xenophobia - when there’s a problem people look for whatever thing seems most
different in their current surroundings and blame that thing for the problem.
It’s just a lack of thinking.

~~~
coldtea
> _There really is no acceptable, rational reason for animosity towards
> cyclists._

No rational reason for drivers in a road predominantly used from big vehicles
to not like smaller, hard to see, vehicles with greater flexibility and much
more fragile going around them?

The added care you need to have as a car driver, and danger they impose of
accident, is not enough?

Especially since most of the time (e.g. in highways, interstates, etc) you get
to have the road to just cars and don't have all this?

~~~
efnx
Being careful and aware of your surroundings is a prerequisite for driving. If
you can’t avoid small vehicles you need to get off the road.

------
mynegation
As a driver, a cyclist, and a pedestrian I thought about it a lot. I think it
boils down to an interdependent combination of culture, infrastructure, and
rules of the road and their enforcement.

First, it really helps if cycling infrastructure is separated from car and
pedestrian infrastructure as much as possible. The more separation, the
better. In Ottawa, for example, there are several dedicated cross-city bike
trails, but not too many in Toronto, they are far and wide between, and it
shows. It is not always possible and in that case I would give bicyclists
preferential treatment on dedicated side streets.

The bike trails should be immediately visible to anyone, e.g. painted green
for the full length. This makes it immediately visible for everyone: turning
cars, passengers exiting the vehicle, pedestrians who decided to jaywalk and
scanned the space for cars, but not bikes.

The road rules should be clear, strict and unambiguous for bikes. I understand
that stopping at the STOP sign is inconvenient on a bike (losing momentum and
balance, braking and pedaling up is hard), but cyclists should ignore stop
sign if and only if there is no one else on the intersection. If there are
cars, pedestrians, or other bikes crossing it, cyclists _must_ resort to the
stop rule. I do not know how many times I have seen cyclists thinking this
does not apply to them.

------
scandox
Happens to pedestrians where cyclists are the majority too. It's dehumanizing
turtles all the way down.

~~~
mywittyname
It happens anytime people are afraid of another group for any reason.

~~~
antisthenes
I'm not afraid of cyclists as a pedestrian nearly as much as I'm afraid of
drivers when I'm a cyclist.

Conversely, whenever I'm on a bike, if pedestrians are present, I always slow
down to walking speed, make sure they are aware of my presence and pass them
safely and slowly.

I am awarded no such courtesy from drivers.

~~~
kelnos
I think the issue with that different treatment is that, aside from the
inconsistent availability of dedicated (and hopefully buffered) bike lanes,
there aren't spaces "made for" bicycles. I hear arguments along the lines of
"roads are made for cars", and I think people would nearly equally argue that
"sidewalks are made for pedestrians", so cyclists can't really win: they're
the unwelcome interloper wherever they are, and need to yield and watch out
for the "intended" users of the space.

~~~
antisthenes
Pretty much this, yes.

No amount of courtesy and rule-following can compensate for a complete lack of
biking infrastructure on like 95% of all commutes.

------
btrettel
Aggressive behavior against cyclists is unfortunately fairly common, but as a
daily transportation cyclist I worry more about well-intentioned bad drivers.
For example, these are the drivers who turn across the bike lane without
checking for on-coming cyclists. It's not that these drivers don't consider
cyclists as fully human. They're just bad drivers and probably have similar
problems with other drivers. Cyclists are just more vulnerable to them.

~~~
ubu7737
I had an accident like this.

I was hauling ass down a one-way, two-lane street in the bike lane (shoulder).
A woman in a sedan pulled in from a side street on the left, crossed into the
right lane, then swerved across my lane to make a right turn into a shopping
plaza.

I had no vector for escape, it was too sudden. I believed I would go through
her right rear window and wind up in the car. Instead, the bicycle and I
slammed laterally against her car and flew forward at her angle, my sternum
striking her passenger-side mirror. As it happened, I thought it would kill
me, but the mirror just exploded into a hundred pieces.

I landed on the ground with my bike next to her now-stopped vehicle, solar
plexus aching but otherwise almost unharmed.

She was very apologetic. She said she had many friends who were cyclists, and
she was aghast at the idea of hurting any of them. She told me if I was
unhurt, and agreed not to request the police, she would happily absorb the
damage to her vehicle (it was really badly damaged by my bike scraping over 4
feet of her paint).

After I caught my breath and realized I was unharmed, I told her it was a fair
cop and we were good. But I will definitely never forget the terror I felt as
I slammed into her.

~~~
btrettel
Classic right hook:
[http://bicyclesafe.com/#righthook](http://bicyclesafe.com/#righthook)

I've had many close calls like that, but fortunately have avoided collision.
Drivers saying that they are "really pro-cycling" or whatnot means little to
me now. If they were, you'd see it in their actions. That's not to say that
mistakes don't happen, but "mistakes" happen so frequently to cyclists that
it's hard to conclude anything other than that most drivers don't understand
how to drive safely with cyclists on the road. Good intentions are not enough
to be "pro-cycling" in my view.

For what it's worth, I would have called the police and requested an ambulance
and I recommend the same for every bike crash, no matter how minor. (And I
would have made it clear that the driver would be paying for all medical
costs.) It helps make the police's statistics accurate, and adrenaline may
prevent you from seeing how hurt you really are. Best to play it safe. I'd
like to underline the importance of keeping the statistics accurate. I've
talked to a city traffic engineer about how one intersection was dangerous and
they said they weren't going to do anything about it because they received no
reports of crashes there. I'm confident that they occur, but they're not
reported to the city. Don't let being "nice" prevent safety improvements.

------
luiscleto
I don't drive or cycle (on a regular basis), and I haven't been particularly
exposed to generic rage towards cyclists. I don't think I see cyclists as any
less human than cars and their drivers, or bikers for that matter. Yet of all
the aforementioned groups, the only ones I've learned to be especially
cautious of (and to which I linked negative preconceptions) are cyclists.

This was never a problem for me when living in the Netherlands, where there is
good infrastructure and rules. (At least after getting past the phase where
you simply need to adapt to the ridiculous number of bikes when compared to
other countries).

After moving to Dublin, it doesn't matter if you're on the sidewalk,
pedestrian-only bridges, or crossing a pedestrian crossing when the light is
green, you always have to watch out for bikes because you never know when one
is heading right into you, regardless of how many traffic rules they need to
be breaking to do so. From my own anecdotal evidence I've learned to expect
worse/reckless behavior from cyclists compared to any other road user.

I'm sure they aren't worse people that anyone else and this is probably
aggravated by the severely lacking infrastructure over here, but I seriously
doubt "dehumanization" is the root cause of the problem here (even if it may
contribute to a vicious cycle). From a driver's perspective, better
infrastructure would probably also make them stress less over accidentally
causing serious harm to a cyclist over something that would otherwise be their
fault.

That said, I don't have stats or studies to back any of this up and this is
all assumed from my own observations.

------
dr_orpheus
In my own experience I think a lot of this comes from both cyclists and cars
not understanding the rules on how to interact with each other. For example, I
see a lot of cyclists riding too far out in to the road, riding two abreast
when there is not really a shoulder, not signaling properly or rolling through
stop signs. And on the other side I see a lot of cars passing cars while
cyclists are present or turning in front of cyclists.

I am an avid cyclist, and I think I probably get angrier than the average
person when I see a cyclist breaking the rules cause I am thinking to myself
"you are making the rest of us look bad."

~~~
kiliantics
In most places, cyclists are actually entitled to the full lane and are
allowed to cycle two abreast.

~~~
peterlk
Additionally, it is often safer to assert space on the road as a cyclist in
order minimize the probability of being clipped by a car passing too closely.

------
pessimizer
Just reading internet comments by drivers against cyclists would set your
prior for that; the animosity is often off the charts.

~~~
d4rti
And the comments here are no better than the usual, with the classic anti
cycling tropes on full display: \- Don't pay (road tax) \- Illegitimate road
user \- Riding abreast (in my jurisdiction this is legal and in many places it
is and in fact encouraged as it makes a group of cyclists easier to pass) \-
Stop signs/red lights/don't obey traffic rules (as if cyclists are the only
group for which any of this is true)

~~~
bhandziuk
The red light thing is always funny. Driver's just don't notice other driver's
run red lights either because they're far away from the intersection, their
view is obstructed by other cars, or they're just doing other things during a
red light. I'd say, from my bike, I see a red light run once every 2 days and
I only go through about 5 lights on the way to work.

------
veryworried
I have to conclude I hate cyclists. This isn't something that just happened,
but rather has been due to a long history of bad experiences with cyclists.

My earliest contempt for cyclists began in elementary school, where cyclist
kids would just jump on their bikes and ride home while I had to slog through
a long bus drive. Cyclist kids felt they were just better than others.

Then in college, cyclists going to and from class on their bicycles were
annoying as hell. How many times I would just be walking minding my own
business and a dude on a bike out of nowhere weaves through a crowd and just
cuts across me nearly hitting me, and at an unsafe speed. I'm sure when you're
riding a bike you have no idea how fast you're going, but as a pedestrian it's
easy to see how close these individuals were to disaster. What if I had
suddenly stepped in a different direction into the path of the bike?

As a careerist adult, cities are no better. I distinctly recall one time in
New York City where I was about to cross an intersection when suddenly I heard
someone shout, a cyclist was heading straight for me downhill and I jolted
myself backward narrowly missing the bastard. He could have easily struck me
down.

And then of course on the roadways there is always an anxiety when I see a
cyclist. I have to make sure I move aside at least three feet and slow down
considerably because I know if I hit them I'll probably be spending time in
prison. I don't have a problem if you want to risk your life but you should
have to accept the responsibility of your actions all on your own at that
point.

~~~
natestemen
> I know if I hit them I'll probably be spending time in prison

lol cyclists are dying left and right and barely anyone is going to prison.
the privileged class (drivers in this case) will always protect their own.

~~~
scarejunba
Yeah, I like how they play the victim here. Amelie Le Moullac's death was
totally normal in SF and it was covered up super hard.

------
ypzhang2
Not 100% on topic, but one of the pet peeves I have noticed with cyclists is
quite a few of them do not obey the rules of the road. As vehicles, they have
to stop at stop signs and lights, but feel like quite an appreciable
percentage do not. I'm not saying drivers are entirely faultless, but feels
like its to a lesser extent and not as flagrantly.

~~~
bryanlarsen
"to a lesser extent and not as flagrantly."

I'd wager a higher percentage of cyclists stop at all stop signs than
motorists who strictly obey the speed limit.

~~~
btrettel
Whenever I find myself in a conversation with a driver complaining about
cyclists blowing through stop signs, I ask if they always follow the speed
limit. Often I get a rant about how the speed limits are almost always too
low.

As far as I can tell roughly the same percentage of cyclists break the law as
drivers. Unfortunately most people take a selective view of this, ignoring
what drivers do.

(I'm a cyclist who always stops at stop signs. In fact, I have helmet cam
video of myself going through a cyclist stop sign enforcement operation
without any issue from the police.)

------
apocalypstyx
It used to be (circa late 1800s) that the word 'typewriter' referred to three
things: 1) the machine itself 2) the operator of such a machine could be
referred to as 'a typewriter' 3) the combination of the two, that is, the
machine and the person driving the machine are a singular unit (which is also
speculated to be one of the reasons for a major upsurge is 'ghost-possessed
typewriter fiction' at the same time [the girl operating the machine might
become more than mere instrumentation]. What this is getting at is (in
contemporary america) I'll argue that it is the combination of the homosapien
+ an automobile that is defined as human. (Just look at how we derogatorily
consider those who have to take mass transit because they do not possess [or
are possessed by] an automobile, therefore cannot fully actualize themselves
as human beings.)

------
dang
Cyclist vs. driver vs. pedestrian threads are always the same, which suggests
we should just ban them.

------
SrslyJosh
Gee, what a surprise. Also, I have some amazing news for you about "ironic"
racism...

------
falcolas
And cyclists call people in cars "cagers", and presume they're all out to kill
the cyclist. The only difference in the dehumanization is that people in cars
can more easily kill people not in cars.

------
klank
In a past life I did somewhat serious cycling in rural Georgia as training for
triathlons. So everything I'm about to say is with the caveat that it's my
personal experience in one small slice of America.

Myself, and everybody I rode with, had stories of objects being thrown out of
windows from passing cars in an attempt to hit you. Mainstay was was bottles
but a friend did have a phonebook thrown at them. We laughed about that
one...who has a phonebook these days and who keeps it in their car?

Had cars stop and try to start fights as well.

Consistently though, both while on the bike and in my social interactions with
others, there is a close association between cyclists and liberals. The
cycling was a visible qualifier but the anger, and not surprisingly,
dehumanization, was driven more by their political and social leanings than
any truly inherent dislike of cyclists.

------
gavygavs
Cyclists

They're delaying me seconds at intersections, they're forcing me to spend more
time checking that I don't door them, they leave their bikeshares on my
sidewalks, and some ((I assume)) are good people.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The unfortunate truth is that bicycles do no belong on the road with cars. The
car/SUV weights 2000-5000 pounds and can go much faster than a bike. It is
also heavily "armored", in that most car collisions do not result in serious
injury to the occupants.

The bicycle has much lower weight, and lower speed. In addition, the majority
of bicycle collisions are going to result in at least some minor injury.

The solution to this problem is to build protected bike lanes where cars
cannot come. Unfortunately, there is not the political will to do it, so we go
with this fiction that cars and bikes are equals, even though that results in
a significant number of biker deaths.

~~~
btrettel
> The solution to this problem is to build protected bike lanes where cars
> cannot come. Unfortunately, there is not the political will to do it, so we
> go with this fiction that cars and bikes are equals, even though that
> results in a significant number of biker deaths.

There's actually quite a bit of opposition to separate infrastructure from
cyclists. While the risk of being hit from behind is reduced on separate
infrastructure, there has to be intersections at some point, and that's where
the danger amplifies.

In Austin, I almost never ride on the Guadalupe St. cycletrack because about
one third of the time that I do, a driver turns across it without looking at
an intersection. There are signs saying to look, but that doesn't seem to stop
the problems.

Infrastructure can help, but it needs to be designed well, and what I see
typically in the US is not designed well.

------
xkcd-sucks
Can't we just force everyone to ride motorcycles? That would be a rare
compromise that makes both sides happy!

------
Kiro
This is completely foreign to me coming from a country/city where bicycles are
the norm.

------
jchanimal
This is why I avoid helmets.

------
grawprog
My main problem with cyclists as both a pedestrian and in a vehicle comes from
them seemingly arbitrarily deciding when they're a vehicle and when they're a
pedestrian.

They'll blow through stop signs and red lights, then yell at you for being in
their way, they'll illegally turn in front of your vehicle, then yell at you
for not giving them the right of way, they swerve through traffic changing
lanes without signaling then again, will get angry with you when you have to
slam on your brakes to avoid killing them, they'll go back and forth between
the sidewalk and street without paying attention to pedestrians or cars and
yelling at anyone that gets in their way.

My experience has been, they wish to be treated like pedestrians, as in, have
the right of way whenever they want, whether it's with a vehicle or an actual
pedestrian, until they decide they're actually a vehicle.

For me, when i'm on a bike, i'm a vehicle. I obey traffic laws, yield to cars
much of the time, because they will crush me and give pedestrians the right of
way at intersections. Cyclists that don't do these things piss me off.

ETA: This may have come across like I was targetting all cyclists. I meant,
the ones that do things like this are the ones I have a problem with. There's
plenty of cyclists I see more often that don't do things like this. I have no
problem with them I don't judge them as a group. I dislike in general when
people do dangerous things on the road. Whatever vehicles they're in or not
in. These just so happen to be the shitty things i've experienced cyclists
doing that bug me.

~~~
kurtisc
When someone's in a car and they see someone else in a car blow through a red
light, they say something along the lines of 'that person's an idiot'. When
they someone on a bike do it, they say 'cyclists are idiots'.

If I count how many laws people in cars break when I drive home tonight -
speeding, illegal parking, etc. - I'll run out of fingers and toes.

Ultimately the worst thing someone on a bike can do to me in a car is cause me
a delay. The worst thing I can do to them is kill them. So I give them the
benefit of the doubt.

~~~
maceurt
There are a lot less cyclers than drivers, and cyclists are more likely to run
redlights or stops signs than drivers.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
That is wrong: [https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-
dont-b...](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-break-
traffic-laws-any-more-than-drivers-do/)

~~~
maceurt
One study involving 100 cyclists in one city is not conclusive at all. Also,
the cyclists knew they were being tracked and monitored so they probably were
more adherent to traffic laws during this study.

Anecdotally, I have seen a lot higher percentage of cyclists breaking traffic
laws than drivers, and it seems a lot of people have observed that in their
own day to day life also.

