Our local paper has a daily column which deals with road issues. The journalist who writes it seems to do by posting something (here on the forums, we would call it a troll) the day before on a web site that the paper maintains, and allows comments to pour in, he then writes his column in the form of a question and answer format, incorporating the comment posts as part of his questions. Yesterday, the initial post was titled "Plea to bicyclists: Stop at stop signs". The predicted rants between cyclists and motorists ensued. (to see the gore for yourself, look here. This is not new, no new ground was covered, but what confuses me is why is it that cyclists failing to follow the rules of the road gets motorists so excited? Have there been many motorists injured by bicycles wantonly flying through stop signs and smashing up SUVs with their bodies?

We see some police departments stepping up enforcement and cracking down on scofflaw cyclists, we see the outrage in the comments whenever the topic comes up - but why? It seems that since autos have bumpers, and cyclists have bones, those placed most at risk by the behavior are the cyclists themselves - so why is it such a big deal for motorists?