Originally Posted by chipcom

Thing is, I don't buy the "cyclist-inferiority phobia". It is more accurately "a human being's natural fear of traffic". EVERYONE who is not acclimated to operating a vehicle in traffic, whether that vehicle is a bike, car, truck or tank, is not comfortable doing so and has a fear of having a whoopsie.

Take my mother as an example. When she learned to drive in the early seventies, she was scared to death of driving on anything but a deserted road and even then she was slow, tentative, hugged the curb and was over cautious. That fear continued for the first few years she drove...she wouldn't drive anywhere unless she absolutely had to. Yet, at the same time, she was perfectly comfortable riding her bike on the same roads she didn't want to drive on. She didn't ride a bike as a kid, she learned to ride at the same time my Dad was teaching me...a good 5 or 6 years before she learned to drive.

The phobia, if you prefer to call it that (I don't agree) is not limited to cyclists, which is where Forester's theory falls flat and comes off as merely twisting something to his own ends. It's simply human nature to be uncomfortable doing something new.