Bizarre Reaction

Oi!

Well, you're a bloody paradox.

Someone once explained to me that the diagonal across the Volvo logo is symbolic of illegitimacy in heraldry, If the car itself is a complete bastard it doesn't matter how nice the driver is.

Like it

And how did they form it?

I don't know, we should ask them maybe? In the same vein, how did racists form their racist opinions? It's the exact same story. God knows why the racist guy became racist in the first place, but surely, when he learns that someone, say, committed burglary, and he was, say, black, he will use that fact to reinforce his racist views, although the fact that the burglar was black is completely pointless and irrelevant to the normal non-racist guy. Do you see where I'm coming from?

If you want some attempted explanations of the negative views some drivers hold towards cyclists, there's always this document. Some quotes (my emphasising), but there's much more in it (read at least the conclusion, but really the whole document is really worth reading):

Section 3.5 is quite interesting too, and contains the following paragraph, which essentially says in a much more elaborate way what I was trying to say:

Also, drivers tend to consider cyclists as inconsiderate in situations where the confidence of the driver in what the cyclist is going to do is decreased:

And there's much more...

What you said re: car v bike, other countries, gave me the impression you did. Apologies.
A lot of crimes are reported without video evidence, and it would be interesting to see what the police response would be if you did report it, with or without video. (obviously without in this case)

I think that was MrHappyCyclist. Sorry if I did.

I believe entirely that the driver is totally responsible for their actions and are totally to blame. Apart from when I have made a mistake or put myself in a bad position. However the cyclist I care most about is me, and I would like that driver, and all drivers to see a cyclist and think positive things and give me what they would view as EXTRA room. This may then almost amount to a safe pass.
If they have just been cut up by a bike, or earlier that day were almost mown down by a red light jumper they are more likely to pass closer. Not out of any maliciousness, but just because they view less than a metre as safe adequate clearance and why should they make a special effort?
A wobble through a pothole, drain, a gust of wind, a puncture wobble, you are toast as you have zero wiggle room.

Eg I know several bus drivers. They are all very cycle aware, and nice, considerate people. However I have been knocked off by two london buses,(received one apology) and always assume when I am near them that they are actively out to get you, will always fail to signal and randomly change lanes.

So to my surprise the study enas has posted does seem to support this view.

So very important point: I DONT want you to get splattered. However you might be able to improve the life of a cyclist in your town. Maybe a quick email to the council? Pop in to the hotel and mention it. If they are supporters of cyclists then maybe they will be able to support your view to the council? Point out the danger (maybe exaggerate slightly? the negative impact on tourism when a visiting cyclist gets crunched!) to the council and beg for a contraflow cycle lane. Or more one way signs.

I'm sure there are, but they all fail to address the point...why do these opinions become formed.

I suspect they are formed from poor education and bad experience. Each of which is rooted in an initial poor experience (My dad hates cyclist because...I hate cyclist because...)...Stimulus response. All of the citations you mention are simply peddling the same symptom, not addressing the cause.

I'm saying all of this because you seem to be open minded and grounded in your views but at the same time you cannot except that poor experience will teach poor opinion...that's how poor opinion is formed.

So, RLJers, agro riders and cockwombles on bikes, all help to deliver poor impressions and create negative stereotypes.

ergo, those little shites make it worse for the rest of us.

Really, read the document, because it does address that point. You might agree or disagree with them, but it does provide some explanations. Of course what you say is right (that the misbehaving minority is reinforcing driver's negative opinion on cyclists), and is well explained in this document. But there's more than that.

First, there is a negative opinion to begin with (from some drivers, and the study shows that it's really a minority of drivers), independently from the misbehaving cyclists. There is an elaborate explanation of why is that, but roughly the point is that cyclists are perceived as an out-group, with different needs and non-anticipable behaviour (hence drivers don't know how they're supposed to behave around them), and with a perceived peer-pressure to favour members of your own group, even at the expense of the members of the out-group (hence drivers who feel compelled to overtake when they know they shouldn't).

Second, the perception of cyclists as an out-group is what leads to this act of generalising the perception of one member of the group to the group as a whole. You don't get this phenomenon with members of the in-group.

So, and it will end my involvement in this discussion, as it's getting away from the OP, my point is that we shouldn't aim at improving the behaviour of the misbehaving minority. Accepting this reasoning is accepting the status quo, and sometimes accepting that it's even valid for drivers to generalise the perception of some within the "out-group" to the whole "out-group". Cyclists are just humans on a bike, and you will get all sort of humans amongst them. As cyclist, we should try to understand why cyclists are perceived as an out-group, and concentrate our energy at eliminating this distinction, and normalising cycling as an activity. This study, although not its main scope, also provides some elements addressing these aspects.

So I totally agree with this, however... this will take time. While this is happening I think it only takes a small effort to try and remind the few who don't, to take more notice of the Highway Code, use lights, etc. And this also improves the safety for cyclists, even if it is just one person who buys a light and now doesn't get knocked off as they are now visible.
TTFN

No, dont do that...this is an interesting point

I really don't want to pass these guys my details just to download, do you have a copy you can post in a dropbox account or something, so that we can have unfettered access. It sounds interesting

You can download it entering dummy details, but the PDF is online in other locations, such as here.

Brilliant, thank you. I shall pour over this during the day. So far it is an interesting document I am especially interested to read the results of the "testing of the research"...as this seems most likely to be the area that will either challange or confirm my view.

However, as you say it is worth reading through (so I shall resist the temptation to cherry pick)

I'm slightly amazed you have doubts about that TRL, Jonny. Sure, I applaud your critical approach, but this sort of thing should be fairly obvious to most experienced cyclists, I would think. It's also obvious from many of the comments you see on newspaper articles.

Its not doubts BM...it a question regarding the formation of negative views. I believe that poor experience (and poor education/imparted opinion is the key)

As such I SPECIFICALLY beleive that RLJ'ers all make our lives harder by enforcing a negative stereotype.

Enas doesn't

Enas, quoted the TRL to support his/her view.And so I accepted the challange to review the content and challange this (or accept I am wrong).I have to say that, so far I've yet to find anything in the doc that support Enas's position (to the contrary infact)...but its early days...and its a huge body of work.

I think you're still missing my point. I'm absolutely not denying the fact that wrongly-behaving cyclists reinforce negative perception of cyclists. This is also mentioned in the said document. However, that's only anecdotical (one paragraph in the whole document, if I remember correctly). The real question this document tries to address is why drivers (this refers to those drivers that do so, not all drivers in general) hold this negative perception, which pre-existed their reinforcement by wrongly-behaving cyclists, and why they generalise it to all the "cycling population" (which asks why the "cycling population" is perceive as a single coherent entity). My point is that I refuse to hold what any other guy does while cycling (you can call him cyclist if you wish) as responsible for how any driver behaves towards me.

We both accept that bad cyclists affect us by enforcing a negative stereotype to some drivers. You say, make them stop. I say, cyclists are just humans choosing a bicycle as a means of transportation, I have nothing more in common with all cyclists than I have with all wearers of black striped socks, assuming I was wearing them (I am not actually wearing them, I just like the image). Therefore, I have to put up with the fact that you'll find all sort of people among them, as among any other road user really. The change I want to see is a significant change in the environment that will: 1) lessen or stop this aforementioned phenomenon (drivers forming an opinion on cyclists as a whole), 2) reduce the likelihood that such drivers can do any harm on me. The said document gives some clues about how to achieve this, although it is not in its main scope.

Finally, as I final disclaimer, I have to stress that I live in Ireland, which is why I'm very little actively involved in this forum, although I follow it rather extensively. I got involved in this discussion as I believe it raises points that are in no way specific to the UK, but I can't guarantee there are not some misunderstandings due to "cultural" differences (as similar as the contexts are, they're still two different settings).

In my opinion, yes there are the people who's negative opinion is defined by observation, but I believe in another cause of the aggression. It's territorial behaviour.

It's their 'right' to proceed as they see fit against ours. I'd say that the same people that vent their anger upon cyclists are the same ones that then tailgate, intimidate and carve up any other form of traffic. In their eyes it's their roads, their tax, our trespass upon it.

Look, if that can help make my point, I just devised a story. Suppose you're an honest law-abiding citizen. Suppose you're black. Suppose you live in a country where there is some strong anti-black racism. Sure, you know that the majority of the population is made of normal rational people. However, the racist minority is really making your life hard, in fact they're making it dangerous because they'll go to extreme and irrational levels of violence against you simply because you're black. Now, you have very well noticed, from newspapers, in the media, in fact from everywhere (those racists are also very vociferous) that those racists employ any incident involving a black person as a justification for their racist views (things along the line "Did you hear about that guy who robbed this poor old lady? Yes, he was black. And people call me racist?"). And you infer that those criminals (only the black portion of the criminal population, the rest doesn't matter) are partly, in fact greatly, responsible for all this racism that affect your daily life, because it reinforces the racists views of racist people. So, do you go and try to convince every single black person in this country to stop committing any crime, as an attempt to eliminate racism? Or do you feel that this is exactly what racism is about (the non-racist doesn't give a shit that the aforementioned criminal is black, and doesn't relate you to this black criminal, in fact he doens't give a shit that yourself, the criminal, or anyone else is black or not), and what you want is indeed to fight racism, by fighting racists themselves?

Does that story sound sadly true? Now replace black person with cyclist and racist person with driver holding negative views of cyclists, read again, and draw your own conclusions.