Originally Posted by banerjek

Instead of helping people see what's great about cycling and how to manage all the situations they'll encounter, their game plan for getting more people riding is essentially to make them terrified of virtually everyone they'll encounter.

They succeed in the terror thing so well that they're afraid of riding in garden variety situations themselves. You should see our local cycling boards and how much meldodrama they can make out of the most ordinary encounters. And then they wonder why everyone else doesn't jump on the bandwagon.