Originally Posted by chephy

It is The Notion. And the notion isn't "everything should get outta the way". It's "bicycles should get outta the way". Don't try to overgeneralize it, it doesn't work.

Motorists willingly accept considerable delays without blowing up at anybody like this jerk did. They patiently wait for the little old lady to cross the street while the traffic light goes through three cycles. They do not yell obscenities at tractor drivers on rural roads. In short, they can be generally made to obey the rules of the road even if they inconvenience them.

It's just that they don't believe that it's right for bikes to be on the road. To them it's like letting pedestrians all over the road and into left-turn lanes. They think we should stick the sidewalk and the gutter, and consider themselves supergenerous and virtuous when instead of yelling "Get off the road!" and running us over to teach us a lesson they simply squeeze us within half an inch of the curb while honking madly. They feel they've done a good deed: educated the moron-biker, but not too harshly. They honestly do.

Not all of them are like this of course. But a plenty. This is sad and I don't know what to do about this. The examples I quoted above show that the motorists CAN be taught to wait and not resent it, but the society doesn't want to teach them they should wait for the cyclist. And I don't want to try to change the world all by myself: ...