Originally Posted by
Phamilton
I don't know why more people don't race, regardless of vehicle. Speeding while commuting is pointless in a car or on a bike, there are no appreciable time savings to be had when anybody else is on the road and/or there are any stops. If you want to drive fast or ride your bike fast, go race somewhere. And wear a helmet. Drive/ride slow everywhere else. Speed kills. I don't believe it's an end-all solution, but man, imagine if everybody just gave themselves 10 or 15 extra contingency minutes for each trip, or how about 15% of travel time in minutes, regardless of vehicle. Even 3 minutes. "I don't have to rush around this cyclist, I left for work 5 minutes early. I can wait 10 seconds". "I don't have to ride my bike 20mph to get to work on time, I gave myself 10 extra minutes so now I can afford to ride 15mph, take a break halfway, and have time for a cup of coffee when I get there. If I flat a tire, I have time to change it and still get to work on time". I don't hear people talk about the "rat race" anymore, but that doesn't mean it's not a real thing.
I was going to say, because not everybody's in a hurry, but reading the rest of your post more carefully, I take your meaning to be more like "If more people were involved in racing activities in organized racing events, they would get it out of their system and more likely to commute more carefully."
That's fine as far as it goes, but cycling racers are gonna train on public roads, that's pretty unavoidable. And cycling racers who also cycle-commute will probably want to leverage their commute into training.