McSweeney’s bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.
You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.
Well the alternative is to be lit up and at the mercy of motorists who don’t know how to share the street. As I said, it was more typical they’d drive erratically near me when I had lights and reflectors up than when I was shrouded.
Maybe when we automate our cars so they’re not dependent on human beings, it might be safe to be near them.
I don’t know where you live, but cycling in London on a daily basis for a commute, I don’t commonly see the kind of driver aggression you describe.
I absolutely do come across cyclists with no lights/reflectors, wearing dark clothes that aren’t visible until the last moment- and it is all to imaginable how they could be part of an accident with car - or pedestrian.
The most common threat is someone ‘dooring’ you as they get out of a parked car, or coming out of side turn without noticing you. Both threats are magnified my invisibility
I lived in San Francisco until 2015. (I got pushed out due to gentrification, and ceased biking at all after the epidemic lockdown of 2020.) It’s possible I just bicycled quieter routes. Here in California, those exiting vehicles into traffic know to open their doors slowly, lest they lose doors and limbs to high-speed motor traffic. I’ve never hit someone – or near-missed, for that matter – exiting a vehicle.
I have been run off the road from lingering in blind spots but my reflectors weren’t a factor in those cases. San Franciscans are not great at consistent turn signaling.
I’m in Sacramento, now, and yes, the drivers are less aggressive here, but I haven’t been cycling at all, yet, let alone cycling in traffic. I can’t speak for London drivers, and would probably adjust my cycling habits accordingly if I were to move there. But in San Francisco, cyclists are infamously not well liked, either by motorists, law enforcement or city hall, though there are now more bike lanes, and The Wiggle is now a recognized route.
Well,
SF cyclists are entitled douchebag tech bros. Just unlikeable as people. Cycling (or at least, being vocal about your cycling) seems to attract the worst kinds of people.
No one is targeting cyclists. That’s not a thing. It’s a persecution complex dreamed up because: see above.
SF Bay drivers are some of the worst in the country. No, you’re not being targeted by the person running you off the road. They just do that. All the time. To everyone.