Why is it that every time a bike/car incident happens all drivers say it was obviously the bikers fault and all bikers say that it was obviously the drivers fault?
Maybe 6,000 lb hunks of metal and 16 lb hunks of metal just don't mix.
What really sucks is for those of us who bike and drive; our heads tend to explode due to the opposing forces of warring clannish reflex.
Saw it happen just the other day at the trailhead, when discussing such incidents with folks loading their bikes onto their cars...it was like watching the end of Mars Attacks, except with differently colored blood and fewer ray guns.
You know I heard this kind of bang-squish noise...
It's called Windshield Vision
I've been mixing my 20 to 30 lb+- vehicles with the other vehicles for 40 some years now and it hasn't really seemed a problem.
Haven't tried one of the 16 lb ones yet, although I would love to.
Now, I HAVE encountered some people who shouldn't really mix with other people.
Why is it that everyone thinks that they are a good driver, but everyone else is a bad driver?
Jim, don't you think every time is just a teeeny bit of an exaggeration?
i've noticed the same thing. every time a gun goes off the gun people blame people and the people people blame the gun.
i've seen plenty of cyclists screw up royally. 've often thought Bricker should ride behind the PMVC ride [among others] with a shotgun.
that said, if you kill or maim someone with a weapon you better have a darn good reason. hence the initial suspension of cyclists.
Why is it that everyone thinks that they are a good driver, but everyone else is a bad driver?
Because everyone who drives faster than they do is a jerk and everyone who drives slower than they do is an idiot. Amazing anyone survives on the roads at all with all those jerks and idiots out there.
(not remotely original, but don't remember from where.)
I think you're getting too technical. Everyone but me is an idiot.
I am both a bad driver and a bad cyclist. I take unnecessary risks and behave carelessly in both my truck and on my bike. I am working to change, and to improve on all of these counts, but just tryin' to be honest here.
The relevant conclusion here, however, is that when I f-up in the truck, I'm gonna mess somebody up, and it's going to be a very bad deal for them, and less so for me. If I f-up on my bike, it'll be my blood and their scratched paint.
IMHO, that forms the basis of the cyclist bias towards cars and trucks. Conversely, most motor vehicle operators do not cycle, and thus have never viewed the world the way we do (which explains why I have been trying so hard to drive more carefully, and encourage my wife and friends to do the same).
Just my two cents.
@jim Maybe 6,000 lb hunks of metal and 16 lb hunks of metal just don't mix.
One of those vehicles is appropriate for single-passenger urban transportation. The other is not.
Any questions?
And then there are those of us who ride buses. I may have been a decent driver back in the days when I was merely a flaming idiot. Now that I'm older, I'm not so much the flaming idiot as the jackass who can't figure out how to get out of the way, so I know I don't drive as well. So I just leave it all to the professional drivers, who are piloting 16-ton vehicles, and have their own particular flavor of jerkism.
I am an abysmal motor vehicle driver. At one point I even developed embarrassing road rage - I learned that I do not have the personality to drive in traffic on a schedule while maintaining composure. I wrestled with this for a few years before I learned I must do two of three things:
1) avoid traffic (take back roads, stay off highways, leave at 5AM, etc).
2) avoid schedules (leave early, don't commit to any given time, and don't plan more than one thing in an evening)
3) avoid driving (bike).
That has made me a better driver, ironically, and eliminated road rage.
But Jim, asking a bunch of cyclists about the bias on either side of such an imbalanced momentum equation is not going to find any truths. However I'll point out that I'm passed daily by a huge number of alert, considerate, polite motor vehicle operators. If they all were like that, there'd be far less of an issue. The ones that aren't are a hazard to the general population, not just cyclists.
Why is it that all sweeping generalizations are ridiculously wrong on their face?
Chinston, that's a beautiful elephant.
Thanks - that's Victoria from the Pittsburgh zoo.
That is a nice elephant. How's she handle in traffic?
