Originally Posted by
Mr. Underbridge
I think it's like anything else - well behaved cyclists blend in with traffic, while morons stand out, get noticed, and form perceptions in people's minds.
...
In the end, some people admire us, some people hate us. Best thing you can do to better the perception of cyclists is to ride predictably, assertively, and cooperatively with traffic. ...
+1, but obviously the difficulty is finding the right compromise. Some cyclists stand out as morons or jerks, others stand out in order to get noticed and not get hit. You don't want to blend in so well that nobody sees you. Similarly finding the right compromise between riding "predictably, assertively, and cooperatively with traffic" is largely a matter of experience and judgment and intuition. There are situations where the cyclist must take the lane, and there are situations where the cyclist must not take the lane, and a driver may not be aware of the cyclist's situation.
For example: there is a spot on my commute where I prefer to take the lane even though there is a wide shoulder; I do this because there is a deep but virtually invisible dip in the surface of the shoulder, and I've hit it enough times to dread it. Drivers don't know why I need so much road right there; and why should they?
There is another spot where, given the chance, I always run a red light to get ahead of a line of cars; it probably looks erratic and dangerous, but doing so gets me through a short and very potholed section of road well before the cars reach it, allowing to navigate the potholes safely. My behavior probably looks erratic and unsafe from the drivers' view; but... well, I'm not riding for their benefit.