simonineaston wrote: ↑26 Feb 2022, 11:08am
As I've noted before, there's a strong thread of dislike for cyclists running right through UK society. As a life-long user of 'single-track vehicles' I got used to it early on, and as I migrated from motor-bikes to pedal-cycles, I naively imagined that the dislike might slacken somewhat - what more benign machine is there than a bicycle, for goodness' sake? As you, dear reader, will already know, I was wrong.
I've been puzzled by this strong feeling of antipathy so many people appear to possess. It's not a class thing - we're as likely to be shouted and gesticulated at by (say) white van man - a plumber or plasterer - as Bertie Snooks in his Volvo or Jaguar. It's not an age thing, either, or gender. It's just hard-baked into the body of British society. The default postion is that cyclists are renegade, take up too much room, don't pay to use the road and are to be vilifed and worse at every opportunity. I don't get it. I don't get it at all.
Whilst i 'don't get it' either, i think most of the abuse
does come from a couple of slices of society that, for various reasons, often have a chip on their shoulder.
The first are mostly Boomers, nice house, nice car, good pension, shop at M&S or Waitrose - anything outside of that is to be derided, bicycle riders probably remind them of when they didn't live in such luxury, when they relied on more plebian transport. As cyclists are clearly 'attacking' everything they hold dear they feel its a duty to harass 'us', which might mean hogging shared use paths or as i had yesterday, deliberately blocking my marked route to an ASL. If you met them in the PO or at the pub without a bike presence you'd probably think they were nice people. These are your tacks on the road people.
The second lot are cut from a different cloth, you won't find them on a bike path, they don't walk anywhere, but they will be in a white (other colours are available) van, hooting, shouting and gesticulating, not just at cyclists but other motorists too. Back in the day we'd call them tradesmen - brickies, plumbers, electricians etc and they hate everyone. They'll be the ones with a 10ft wall around the house, the designer clothing, the tacky taste and no name on the van, 'self made', 'worked hard for everything', 'a real diamond', I is everything, there is no us except maybe on the footy terraces. This lot will chase you down if you retaliate, they think they're hard but really they are just bullies.
Oh we get abuse from others, of course we do, some
may even be earnt by errant behaviour (usually by someone else) but of the abuse/close passes etc that i get its a ratio of 60% Boomers, 30% tradesmen and 10% kids/bus + taxi drivers/others. Car centric road planning and promotion of car ownership as a sign of ffinancial prowess has done huge damage to our society and infrastructure, just look at the furore over pandemic cycle schemes
even when most people were supposed to be staying at home and not driving! Any change in attitude will take many years and a huge change in government policy - oh and a closure of the daily wail