Why People Hate Cyclists/bikers

Hi, my experience comes from biking to the beach on my cruiser every week; trips that take 2 hours each. I have yet to die, be honked by at anyone, or get intense biker rage. I know it's usual for cyclists to become angry at drivers because we have the right of way most of the time, but there are times when cyclists are annoying too.

As a driver, the most a cyclist will annoy me is when a group of them are out of their lanes. Never made sense to me why they can't just bike in a line rather than together. I do that when I'm cruising with my friends. Maybe you guys can explain to me since I only go on my cruiser. Is there a bonding thing going on when you guys bike side to side and get out of the bike lane? Does the risk of being closer to passing cars make it more fun?

Today however, I experienced something that makes me think most cyclists either don't have common sense (why do you guys group together and go out of the bike lane's safety?!?!) or just like pushing drivers. This man, is biking in the only lane open. He is going 5 mph in a 30 mph zone. Physically he doesn't look capable of 15 mph for a long period of time. If he can't reach even half the speed limit, why is he taking the one lane available in a pretty trafficked up area due to construction? There is a perfectly open and empty sidewalk for him to bike on. I got so mad being behind him with at least 10 other cars behind me.

I really hope you guys will be able to put yourself back into the driver's seat and understand how inconsiderate and just...ridiculous doing this is. It's not safe, causes traffic, creates road rage....just...why.

Also. I honked at him. A lot. And screamed at him. Wouldn't you if you were blocked by him for 5 blocks? (construction takes up the other lanes for 5 blocks)

 

It is illegal to be on the sidewalk in many places and pedestrians and cyclist don't mix well. Consider that in the grand scheme autos are the new comers since cyclist had laws and road rights before cars. I will grant you that stupid people exits and are annoying on a bike or elsewhere. I try to be considerate and as non-egocentric as possible when on my bike.

 

There is blame to be had on both sides. Bicycles don't belong on the sidewalk. Cyclist that have an anti-motorist attitude and display it by causing unsafe situations don't belong on the road. Motorists should be willing to share the roads.

 

In my experience some cyclists can be really ignorant, and some motorists can be as well. There is blame to be had on both sides.

There is a lot of hate towards cyclists because people feel they should have to pay a tax, ect. to be on the road. Also because some blatantly disregard the rules of the road and then blame the other person when they get involved in an incident. The argument of the road was made for bikes and they were here first I do get but times have changed. I'm sorry but they have, and people must learn to adapt.

If you're cycling on the path, jump out onto the road in front of cars without looking, run through a red light and a pedestrian crossing and then transition back onto the path again, then you deserve all the hate that gets thrown at you in my opinion.

 

I think OP's frustrations are coming from a couple of misunderstandings.

The reason many cyclists choose to group together when riding instead of riding in a line is often because it seems safer to them than riding in line. If a group of cyclists are riding in a line and someone has to stop randomly, there's a big risk of an accident. Since bikes are quiet, it can be hard to judge how far away someone is from you unless you're looking right at them. Some people also ride in groups because it makes it harder for cars to pass as some drivers tend to zip by cyclists without giving us enough room which can be dangerous and cause accidents. I don't think it's good to purposely make it harder for cars to pass but I also don't like it when a car almost runs me off the road so I can understand.

Riding on the sidewalk is also incredibly dangerous. A lot of pedestrians don't pay attention when they're walking. If there's offices or businesses near the sidewalk, a person might walk right out the door without looking both ways and get hit by someone on a bike (or cause the cyclist to get in an accident trying to swerve out of the way.) Cars also don't always look at who's on the sidewalk so riding there might mean getting hit by someone's door.

They do. They pay the same taxes everyone else does. Why should they have to pay extra?

 

They don't pay the same tax for owning a bike, like a car tax.

 

Just run his arse over, that'll make one less jerk on a bike.

 

Actually the non cyclists are paying taxes to fund bike paths and lanes that cost an average of $130,000 per mile for a 5 foot wide lane for just a small percentage of path users (ranges from $5,000 to $535,000 per mile depending on where and circumstances). Being a cyclist myself I think it's only fair that we pay some sort of tax to help fund those projects, a registration fee at purchase time of 10% of the value of the bike would be sufficient, and that fee would also pay to register your bikes serial number into a database that in case it's stolen and if later found it can be given back to the original owner. At 5.8 billion dollars of new bikes sold in 2013 in the USA 10% of that would have been 580 million dollars that could have gone towards construction of new lanes and paths, and that's every year! Of course year to year there is some variance like in 2012 6.1 billion dollars was spent on new bikes thus that year more money would gone into those projects.

About 18% of the population rides a bike at least once a year, that means that 82% of the population doesn't use bike infrastructure at all and yet they pay for the infrastructure to be built for the minority of the population. That 18% needs to step up and pay for using that infrastructure.

 

Arg you have the power to rotate photo's prior to posting so please use it.
Anyways yes agree with most here it's a combo of both Mr, Greenshirt not being consideration and OP being a typical angry motorist.
From what I hear around the forum, it's illegal in most places to bike on the sidewalk. I know it is a ticket able offence in my province. So you cannot get mad at someone for riding on the road if that's the case. Period. However I will often use the sidewalk if there's lots of cars and not many pedestrians and I also go slow. One thing he could have done is hug the curb a little tighter, that's a fat lane so it shouldn't be a problem to have cars passing bikes.
Now OP what you have is a problem with time management. Being stuck behind him for 5 blocks will probably eat up 5 maybe 10 minutes. Which is a normal delay time while driving you can encounter that in a million serious. I don;t see any reason to be yelling at strangers for that. I highly doubt you would be "stuck" behind him that long anyways. That road is wide enough for everyone to get where they are going without any emotional outbursts on anyways behalf.
One last point about the whole cars pay more tax so they are more entitled to road usage. Well it's only applicable here in Ontario (as far as I know, seems reasonable to be true else where) but transport trucks pay a lot more of the cost of highways and local taxes (regional or municipal) pay for your other streets. Gas tax doesn't actually pay for a lot of roads.

 

I pay registration and fees on four cars , property tax and income tax so I think I am qualified to use a small portion of the road. I don't know what a bike lane is and do not ride where sidewalks exist. People need to understand that not everyone lives in an urban area.

 

I pay too much on taxes already.

You are a jerk, OP.

The lane is narrowed by cones. He took the lane on a red light. Cool your jets.

How close were you to the cyclist? Looks to me like YOU broke the law there. The rider is practically into your window.

 

Maybe not on their bike, but I'd wager many or even most cyclists have their own vehicles that they pay taxes on. Plus in my city, cycle-related infrastructure fixes come out of sales tax increases so everyone pays that if they're spending money at all.

This goes back to how taxes work though. We all pay taxes on things we don't necessarily use. I don't have a kid, why should I pay taxes on the school system? The answer is because there's certain public goods that are in everyone's benefit to be funded. I'd argue that having safe roads for bikes and cars is a common public good like public schools.

If your info is correct, I'd argue that not paying a tax is just an incentive to ride bikes which is good environmental policy but I definitely don't see a problem with there being some sort of registration fee, especially if that led to making it easier to track down stolen bikes.

The problem I have with this post is that it's assuming big increases to bike infrastructure happen across the board but that isn't necessarily the case. I can see it happening in bigger cities but not so much in rural communities.

 

Because many of them don't keep the road rules. Others cycle in the middle of the road. Some cause traffic jams when tiny cycle in groups.

 

Because many of them don't keep the road rules. Others cycle in the middle of the road. Some cause traffic jams when tiny cycle in groups.

 

I'd be willing to bet the same percentage of car drivers don't keep to road rules as cyclists who do the same. It isn't really fair to focus on that when I see cars roll through stop signs or don't signal for turns all the time. I mean, if all car drivers followed the law, I would have never been hit by a car. I do think we need better education of road laws for cyclists though. I'm sure many think they don't apply to them.

 

Catsyo, I have to call you on this one. I am a professional driver by trade, I drive around all day long, been doing it over 30 years. I also commute by bicycle, and am what you might call a utility cyclist (shopping, errands, going out with wife, events) are mostly done on a bicycle. I live in a suburban area not an urban area.
On my early AM commute, I see maybe 5 other cyclist and probably 1,000 cars/ trucks. Out of the 5 cyclist 4 of them are breaking some road laws where as out of the 1,000 of cars maybe 5 have broken some kind of law of the road. During the day I maybe see 100 cyclist and 10,000 cars/ trucks and it would be fair to say 90-95 of the cyclist are breaking some road law. While maybe 20-25 car/ trucks have broken some road law.
I want to be proud to be a cyclist, I enjoy it greatly, but honestly, the vast majority of cyclist are terrible at obeying traffic laws which makes it hard for the few who actually care. Far more cyclist roll through stop signs and stop lights than cars do. Far more cyclist change lanes without signaling than cars do.
Actually, in most places it is only illegal to ride on sidewalks in the "business" districts. From the photos the OP posted I seriously doubt it would have been against the law to ride on those sidewalks. Plus there was not a pedestrian in sight in any of the photos. Personally, if that was me, I would have gladly pop up on the sidewalk to let the cars behind me pass. I think "share the road" works both ways. I am afraid that if cyclist do not start to be mindful of being consistent with laws of the road and trying to be good ambassadors to cycling, we may loose more privileges in the future.

 

OP, yet you take pictures on your cellphone while driving........Thats actually a lot worse than what your ripping this guy for.

 

I see a lot of belly aching here about paying taxes used for the road blah blah blah.
Well you know who actually pays A LOT (most) of the taxes for road construction and maintenance?
TUCKERS. Yup the big-rigs. They use an order of magnitude more fuel (and fuel taxes of course) and also have to pax tax on each KM they drive.
But what I really want to talk about is why can't we all just get along?
I drive, I walk and I bike. When someone is using the road and I am driving I (GASP) SLOW DOWN.
Perhaps I am just weird since I always leave an extra little bit of time so I can slow down for others.

 

You're not weird, you're just trying to talk to boneheads about how taxes work. When roads were first being built and for many years afterwards cycling was not even ever considered because no one did here in America till the 80's and even then it wasn't real popular. So now suddenly cyclists want the road taxes to pay for their convenience, sorry but that's not how it should work at least in full. They can raise enough money to pay for most lanes and paths with a 10% bicycle purchase tax. Oh wait, you spend too much in taxes now, yet you vote in Democrats who raise the snot out your taxes, you can afford to spend 6 or 8 grand on a bike, god forbid you have to spend another 600 or 800 for a tax that would benefit your hobby and get the added benefit of theft protection by registering your bike. $580 million potential dollars we as cyclists lost last year for lanes and paths had there been a bike tax.

As far as big cities vs rural, the money from a tax, or registration fee if that makes you feel better, would be handed out according to the number of riders in a particular area, and yes larger cities would get the lion's share but they also have the most issues with cyclists getting hit! And larger cities have more expense to give a road a bike lane because of all the engineering that needs to be done before they start construction, and paths require real estate purchases which cost more in larger cities, so yes more of the money would go to them. I ride in rural areas all the time, there aren't any paths or lanes, but guess what? I don't care because traffic is light, but when I get closer to a city that's when I care. You might still complain about rural areas, ok fine, put your money where your mouth is and support the Rail to Trails organization, at least that money is tax deductible.

Here is the website to donate, whip out your checkbooks and write a check: http://www.railstotrails.org/ If everyone did this here on this forum and other forums it could make a significant impact to getting more rails converted to trails across this nation, at least that would cover some rural areas.

 

I think it's easier to notice when people who are doing a different thing than us break the law, which might describe the differences in our experience. I don't drive, so spotting drivers breaking the law is pretty easy. For example, pretty much everyone here speeds. If you're riding in a car going the speed limit, almost everyone will pass you. I honestly don't think it's a cyclist versus driver issue. It's more of an issue of lots of people, whether they're on foot, driving a car or riding a bike, feel as if the law doesn't apply to them. I mean, I've gotta got to court because I witnessed an accident caused by someone jaywalking, so it definitely happens.