Originally Posted by Niles H.snip
The individual cyclist (as audience or reader) may have no good reason whatsoever to regard himself or herself as the driver of a vehicle, and the sentence makes very little sense to many people in this context.
Originally Posted by John Forester
Then he has to go along as a road sneak, unhappy, fearful, and in the danger caused by his phobia. That's what's wrong with American bicycling policy, and what vehicular cyclists are trying to change.
A road sneak, cringing in the gutter.
Rat-like. Abject. Pathetic.
In danger. Psychologically, spiritually, physically, and probably in other ways.
A cockroach among cockroaches.
Worse: a tumour-cockroach-rodent-hybrid -- greasy, poor, limping along in the soot, reviled by Lexuses, traveling nuns, taxicabs, and retired Presidents.
***
I'm sorry, I got a little off track.
You were saying....
And I was about to say this:
That is not the only option.
I (for example) (and it is just one example, I want to stress that) may regard myself as a pilot -- for this, to me, means something much higher and more responsible than "a driver." The word
pilot, to me, more specifically suggests certain extremely responsible (
far more than "drivers"), highly skilled, safe, well trained major airline pilots I have known.
Or I may regard myself as a cyclonaut.... (and this may have relevant meanings to me that make me fare better)
Or various other things that are far more meaningful and valuable to me as an individual cyclist....