johndeere

I believe that the perceived behavior of the group, all bicyclists, is directly related to observed behavior of a small portion of the group. So every "scofflaw" rider causes other drivers to perceive the rest of us as scofflaws and not worthy of respect on the road. This decreases my safety.

TRaffic Jammer

Bs

Pig_Chaser

If they're going to disrespect you, they're going to disrespect you regardless. But if if makes you feel better to blame someone go right ahead.

JoeyBike

I have taken to blaming cyclists who wear full race kit when they are not racing. Wearing special clothing in the public arena further alienates motorists against us, like we are members of some weird cult. I don't think any other country besides the USofA sees so many clown sausages squeezed into Spandex on pleasure/utility/commuting rides.

I must then suffer the consequences of being lumped into the "bike freak" or "geek" category with the rest of you. It is dehumanizing.

You want equal treatment on the roadways? Try dressing like a normal person for starters.

(This rant is tongue in cheek, but just as relevant as claims that motorists seeing me run a red light will consider all cyclists scofflaws)

TRaffic Jammer

If the freak fits Joey.....

AlmostTrick

It looks like the law abiding cyclists voting "never" are starting to make some late gains on the scofflaw voters. They must have been held up by all those stop lights!

There has to be at least a little truth to this. Scofflaw cyclists are mentioned by motorists every time the subject of cyclists on the road is brought up. This accusation is based on what they actually see on the road, not something they just pulled out of their butt.

My roads really don't offer much incentive for breaking the rules so I usually don't. I pretty much always get treated fairly when I stop at signs and lights and take my turn like everyone else. So maybe it's possible that scofflaws garner the lawful rider more respect from motorists? I don't know, there aren't really enough cyclists around here for me to say.

invisiblehand

Although what people remember and what actually happens tend to be quite different. In this case, we all tend to remember extreme occurances but overlook the ordinary ones producing biased estimates.

JoeyBike

Now THAT is interesting. So you stop at a red light and wait through the whole cycle, and the motorist behind you thinks "Look at that guy/gal obeying the law for a change. I'm going to respect that person when the light turns green." I agree that could happen under perfect circumstances.

Let us dream for a moment that all cyclists under all circumstances obey traffic laws like good little toy soldiers. Would those same motorists begin complaining about being held up by those law abiding cyclists when the light turns green? Would they be more likely to think we don't belong on the road because we are always in their freaking way? We are already obeying the law. Where else could those thought strings lead? Eliminate us? Or change the laws?

You really got me thinking. A critical mass ride where cyclists just obey the laws to the letter and take over the entire right lane at rush hour - virtually eliminating right turns by motorists at peak traffic hours. Would lawmakers see the sense in letting cyclists run the reds and get out of the way? Would motorists scream at the top of their lungs about us clogging up the roadways?

Hmmmm.

AlmostTrick

It's probably more of a case where the scofflaw loses respect than one of the law abiding cyclist gaining it.

Could be, especially in an inner city grid area like yours, where your techniques do work well. In the suburbs were there is no "getting and staying out in front" no amount of law skirting will do much to change the fact that sometimes motorists will have to deal with a slow moving vehicle. I sometimes wonder if it is good that there aren't too many cyclists on my commutes... for the reasons you mentioned above.

zeytoun

I believe that the moon landing was faked.

(see what sort of things we can say without proof?)

IntoThickAir

One small but real reason I ride is to reduce traffic congestion, which puts me in the curious position of being a scofflaw. In Tucson we have signalled crossings for peds/bikes along busier bike routes -- crossings soley for peds/bikes. Upon arriving at such a crossing, instead of pushing the button to stop traffic I often wait for a break in traffic and simply cross on my own (easy, if there's a median to wait in). Doing so has me riding against the 'don't cross signal.' It's illegal, but I don't stop a mess of cars for me, and everyone benefits. I think.

I still use the signal if traffic is heavy, or I'm riding with my children.

San Rensho 

You just don't understand prejudice. Its just unreasoned hatred based on percieved threat. Once someone is prejudiced against a group they will latch onto ANY behavior that they think is unjustified or wrong and condemn the whole group and justify their prejudice on that one percieved wrong behavior. Remember, the prejudice comes first, then the justification comes after

If law breaking by cyclists were the the real reason that many car drivers to hate cyclists, then car drivers would absolutely detest other car drivers since car drivers violate traffic laws much more often and much more egregiously than bicyclists do.

Yes, they are pulling it out of their butts.

Even if cyclists followed every single rule of the road to the letter, car drivers will still hate us and the proof of that is the number of times that you read posts here about drivers yelling "Get the f@ck off the road" when we are cycling down the street violating no laws. A car driver would never do that to another car driver.

Don't be so insecure and want everyone to "like" you, because car drivers won't no matter what cyclists do.

tomg

if you vb, as we all should, then the answer to op is obvious!
we have the laws of the road legally backing our inclusion. the same can counter when ignored.
hold your lane, spin safe!
t

JRA

Word.

The moment someone judges a person as a member of a group ('cyclist' or 'motorist,' for example) and not an individual, then that someone is exhibiting a prejudice.

The formation of an opinion of a group is complex.

It's certainly not as simple as seeing a member of a group do something (say, violate a law). If that's the case, then the situation is surely hopeless because, even if 99% of bicyclists behave admirably, there will always be the odd bicyclist who, according to the premise, will give all bicyclists a bad name.

Personally, I think the premise that it's scofflaws that give bicyclists a bad rep is pretty much a crock. It's much more complicated and there are lots of other reasons why people (even bicyclists) don't like (other) bicyclists.

Judging people on behavior (even group behavior) would be too reasonable. Prejudice is unreasoned bias.

Quite possibly, it's just a numbers game. If there were 20 time as many bicyclists, then cycling would be considered normal and socially acceptable. We're a long way from that.

Back to the original question: I've been unable to think of any case in which scofflaw behavior increases cyclist safety (although, as I said previously, I can think of lots of examples of illegal behaviors that are safety neutral).

johndeere

Acch! I see, you are confused .

A statement of belief requires no proof, only a statement of fact requires proof.