Originally Posted by
jfowler85
Interesting. I see your philosophy about the matter, but the reality is that the perception is always there, it's a demographic. When I was in the Navy, we were constantly warned to watch our behavior out in town because, as a broad generalization (which I have found to be accurate), in the eyes of the public someone in a military uniform represents the military as a whole. .... Don't tell me you've never judged a culture, demographic, occupation, etc by one person. Everyone does it, and everyone knows everyone does it. This ideology is ubiquitous. You do represent other cyclists on the road, despite your opinion of the matter...we (see there, I write "we" because I am fairly certain you will understand that I mean "we who ride bicycles") do the same thing and make generalizations about dickheads in vehicles on the road. Thinking that this does not occur is simply wishful.
You have something of a point, especially when one is seen as a member of a group which
already has an image problem. But I disagree that this is universal world view. I can honestly say that I've never projected the actions of an individual or small number of people onto a group. (Maybe because growing up in NYC conditions one not to).
You apparently do, as evidenced by the last sentence of your post. Maybe it's that people who do this expect that everybody does, and that people who don't, don't.
As for the image of bicyclists in my area, it's anything but monolithic. People engage with me all the time, including a decent share of motorists, and may comment about whether it's safe, saying they wish they too could ride, ask local directions (always fun when I explain that I'm 100 miles from home) or any other thing, (I get lots of encouragement and support when I look like a drowned rat in a rainstorm). Are there jerk drivers in my area, of course there are, but they're a small minority. Most of the few negative encounters I have are issues of driver skill and awareness rather than anti-bike intent.
In fact, I can't see any kind of pattern at all among motorists or the way they engage with me, except that professional drivers tend to be better.