bigfred 

I'm an American living in New Zealand for the last 5 years.

The drivers here are, for the most part, better than many parts of the states. While there are a few who are outwardly aggressive towards cyclist, the majority of the incidences I have experienced have been as the result of simple indifference or ignorance.

Unlike the mid-West of the states where I grew up and where I've had drivers come across the center line to play chicken with me, had object throw at me, even a shotguy leveled out a window less than a foot from my face. Nothing even remotely similliar has ever happened to me here in New Zealand.

What does exist here, is a much larger per capita cycling population than in the states, sharing equally congested urban infrastructure and placing more cyclists in potential harms way on lightly used rural roads, but, which are driven down very quickly by large dairy trucks, logging trucks and other commercial traffic that lack an interstate style road system for their use.

So, we get an unacceptable high fatality rate, largely due to high speed rural incidents between trucks and cyclists, but, occassionaly as the result of an unlucky dooring in an urban setting. And, lots of driver vs. cyclist annomosity in the cities where the two compete for already overtaxed infrastructure.

There is a lot of resentment from drivers who see 1.5meter swaths of pavement being devoted to cyclist, but, who still insist on riding two abreast and obstructing traffic. And, bycycle boxes at intersections that encourage the cyclists right back in front of a driver who just spent several frustrating minutes attempting to pass them. Subsequently, there are a lot of 2 ton vehicle weapons used as bullying devices by their drivers and a lot of banging on fenders, doors and windows as well as shouting and coursing from cyclists.

The current "humanization" campaign is largely aimed at reminding drivers that their are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, celebrities and national sports stars on those bikes they're about to squeeze out. At least from my perspective, it seems to be working. I always try to ride as a responsible "road user" and have on a couple of incidences recieved the support of witnesses, applause and thumbs up when I was following the road code and best practive while the driver was not. I'll also say, I may have experienced a slight reduction in general road encounters over the last few months. But, that's such a difficult thing to quantify.

My continued biggest issue is with dump truck drivers. Specially those pulling long tongued trailers. They seem more likely than any other commercial vehicle drivers to come excessively and needlessly close. And, with the risk of getting sucked into the gap between truck and trailer they are potentially the most dangerous.

The dairy truckers, loggers, garbage trucks and general goods trucks all seem more likely to slow down and/or move over sufficiently to pass safely.

Just my perspective.