Originally Posted by
keyven
Would it be safe to assume most cyclists have driven cars before, while most motorists have never commuted by bike?
By that token, most cyclists would be more familiar with the mentality of a driver, but most drivers won't have the same amount of insight as cyclists.
I believe there's definitely a gulf in perceptions between cyclists and drivers, mostly because your generic driver wouldn't have experienced the sensation of vulnerability when a car zooms close to them, or slams their brake inches from a cyclist. Even if no one gets injured, it is a harrowing experience, which no one wants to be subjected to.
Hence, it is easy for a driver to believe that passing a cyclist by a foot or two is sufficient, given that the cyclist isn't visibly injured. By the time the cyclist registers shock or distress, the vehicle may be long gone.
Education may teach drivers to be more careful, but nothing beats real-world experience when it comes to actually feeling such vulnerability in an environment packed with motorized weapons.
The best combination of education and real world experience would be a system that requires experience on a bicycle before obtaining a drivers license.
Imagine if "road use" were taught at public schools as the "Fourth R," as important as the other the 3 R's; after all, road use IS a lifelong activity. In elementary school, the lessons could focus on basic bike use and basic "rules of the road." In early middle school, the lessons could focus on road use, and rights of cyclists and bike commuting, and finally in high school, an emphasis on laws and ethics of road use, while leading to the use of the automobile and proper driving lessons. Cycling would be a prerequisite to driving. Learning to drive would be more than the 40 hour rushed program it often is today, and the students would have learned to "Share the Road" before becoming motorists.
I understand this is somewhat how things are done in Copenhagen.
Often in the US however, bikes are treated as toys, children are chauffeured to schools from a young age, and the granting of a driver's license, after a few short hours of lessons, is treated as a right of passage...