Are Cyclists Losers and Social Pariahs or Elitist Yuppies?
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Are Cyclists Losers and Social Pariahs or Elitist Yuppies?
The Motorist's Identity Crisis
20 December 2010 - 10:00am
Author: Brian Ladd
Bicyclists and transit riders are losers - right? Or are they elitist, sneering yuppies? Brian Ladd says that people's attitudes and transportation choices are shaped by deep-seated feelings about respectability, and it planners should pay attention.
Non-motorists often wonder why drivers seem so oblivious to their needs and even their safety. Todd Litman's recent Planetizen post on "The Selfish Automobile" argues persuasively that motorists' sense of entitlement has grown out of plans and hidden subsidies that stack the deck in their favor, while appearing to do the opposite. Automobile dependence, as he describes it, has structural causes and psychological effects. Attitudes, though, can carry their own power. Auto-centered planning and auto-centered lives have made it hard for American motorists even to imagine alternative transportation. The idea of getting around without a car has been just too frighteningly gauche to contemplate. But that may be changing.
Most Americans know one thing about the bicyclists they see on the roads: they are losers, and you thank God you're not one of them. Who, after all, rides bikes (at least for transportation, not recreation) in the United States? Mostly kids who aren't old enough to drive—and not even so many of them anymore. Adult cyclists are seen as people too poor to own a car, or too dysfunctional to have a license: grizzled misfits and dark-skinned immigrants you see wobbling along the side of your suburban highway as you zoom past their elbows. Hollywood, as Tom Vanderbilt has shown in a recent Slate article, powerfully reinforces this contempt for the carless.
The reality of biking and bikers is, of course, more complicated. But even the fantasy is more complicated. In American cities with newly thriving bike cultures, cyclists have acquired an entirely different image: as arrogant yuppies. Just look at the letters column or the comments thread any time a daily newspaper publishes a story about bike lanes or shared streets. One motorist after another rages against the privileged spandex crowd that interferes with ordinary working stiffs trying to drive to work: They should be banned from the roads! The police need to crack down on them! Why do we have to get licenses and pay taxes, while they don't? Life is so unfair for us motorists! The venom is often shocking, but the sentiments are heartfelt--even if a cyclist, just home from her daily brush with death, can only shake her head in disbelief.
20 December 2010 - 10:00am
Author: Brian Ladd
Bicyclists and transit riders are losers - right? Or are they elitist, sneering yuppies? Brian Ladd says that people's attitudes and transportation choices are shaped by deep-seated feelings about respectability, and it planners should pay attention.
Non-motorists often wonder why drivers seem so oblivious to their needs and even their safety. Todd Litman's recent Planetizen post on "The Selfish Automobile" argues persuasively that motorists' sense of entitlement has grown out of plans and hidden subsidies that stack the deck in their favor, while appearing to do the opposite. Automobile dependence, as he describes it, has structural causes and psychological effects. Attitudes, though, can carry their own power. Auto-centered planning and auto-centered lives have made it hard for American motorists even to imagine alternative transportation. The idea of getting around without a car has been just too frighteningly gauche to contemplate. But that may be changing.
Most Americans know one thing about the bicyclists they see on the roads: they are losers, and you thank God you're not one of them. Who, after all, rides bikes (at least for transportation, not recreation) in the United States? Mostly kids who aren't old enough to drive—and not even so many of them anymore. Adult cyclists are seen as people too poor to own a car, or too dysfunctional to have a license: grizzled misfits and dark-skinned immigrants you see wobbling along the side of your suburban highway as you zoom past their elbows. Hollywood, as Tom Vanderbilt has shown in a recent Slate article, powerfully reinforces this contempt for the carless.
The reality of biking and bikers is, of course, more complicated. But even the fantasy is more complicated. In American cities with newly thriving bike cultures, cyclists have acquired an entirely different image: as arrogant yuppies. Just look at the letters column or the comments thread any time a daily newspaper publishes a story about bike lanes or shared streets. One motorist after another rages against the privileged spandex crowd that interferes with ordinary working stiffs trying to drive to work: They should be banned from the roads! The police need to crack down on them! Why do we have to get licenses and pay taxes, while they don't? Life is so unfair for us motorists! The venom is often shocking, but the sentiments are heartfelt--even if a cyclist, just home from her daily brush with death, can only shake her head in disbelief.
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I am a dark skinned, grizzled misfit who is also an arrogant, lycra-clad yuppie.
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#8
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I know Audi thinks they are saving the world, but I think I am safer cycling.
https://www.car-accidents.com/audi-ca...accidents.html
https://www.car-accidents.com/audi-ca...accidents.html
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Losers
#11
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It's the same old stuff, stuff that needs to change. Cars and bikes are not forms of transportation in the USA. Cars are a primary means of self-expression and social identity, while bikes are recreational toys for children and fitness fanatics. It's socially acceptable to dress up like a circus acrobat and ride around in circles with no destination or purpose, but only the truly desperate would stop at the grocery store on the way home!
Marc
Marc
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I hate that ad. I own an Audi, and it makes Audi owners look like tools. Way to go.
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While there may be a small minority of cyclist on the extreem ends, to condem all cyclist is just wrong. Most of us are just ordinary guys and gals that like to ride bikes.
#14
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last time I looked, they weren't making any more land, so accommodating a more efficient means of travel seems admirable to me. Looking down on it seems shortsighted and self-defeating.
#15
LET'S ROLL
https://www.bikesbelong.org/resources...on-statistics/
Survey of North American bicycle commuters: Design and aggregate results, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1578, 91-101
- The average North American bicycle commuter is a 39-year-old male professional with a household income in excess of $45,000 who rides 10.6 months per year.
Survey of North American bicycle commuters: Design and aggregate results, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1578, 91-101
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https://www.bikesbelong.org/resources...on-statistics/
Moritz, W., 1997
Survey of North American bicycle commuters: Design and aggregate results, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1578, 91-101
- The average North American bicycle commuter is a 39-year-old male professional with a household income in excess of $45,000 who rides 10.6 months per year.
Moritz, W., 1997
Survey of North American bicycle commuters: Design and aggregate results, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1578, 91-101
Sorta like this guy, who actually commutes to work in his bedroom slippers:
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Roadies have a sense of humor. They know how they're dressed and I think they can take a joke from a fellow cyclist.
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https://www.bikesbelong.org/resources...on-statistics/
Survey of North American bicycle commuters: Design and aggregate results, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1578, 91-101
- The average North American bicycle commuter is a 39-year-old male professional with a household income in excess of $45,000 who rides 10.6 months per year.
Survey of North American bicycle commuters: Design and aggregate results, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1578, 91-101
#24
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Been a cyclist all my life, but never a "roadie." On the bike, roadies can be pushy and oblivious, but I've always thought that it's just due to being very tightly focused. Off the bike, I've found roadies to be as friendly and funny as the rest of the world.
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It's the same old stuff, stuff that needs to change. Cars and bikes are not forms of transportation in the USA. Cars are a primary means of self-expression and social identity, while bikes are recreational toys for children and fitness fanatics. It's socially acceptable to dress up like a circus acrobat and ride around in circles with no destination or purpose, but only the truly desperate would stop at the grocery store on the way home!
Marc
Marc