Originally Posted by Helmet Head

Let's say you're right, and that some kind of motorist education would have these results: bad behavior that originates from the sense of driver entitlement would decrease significantly.

For a cyclist like me, the total amount of motorist "bad behavior" that I encounter and affects me that originates for any reason whatsoever is so rare that my behavior is virtually unaffected by it. So eliminating motorist bad behavior altogether would have little effect. And reducing an essentially insignificant problem by some small percentage (the percentage of all bad behavior that "originates from the sense of driver entitlement") would be even less significant. So I would be honked at 0 times per year instead of 6 times. Big deal.

Okay, so that's me. What about other cyclists you say? Fine. If you look at cyclist fatalities, at least half originate from bad behavior on the part of the cyclist. And that's using a conservative assessment of cyclist "bad behavior", and does not include all behavior that I would include being "bad" (such as going straight from the right side of the lane into an intersection without due diligence, passing a slowing motorist on the right, etc.). But, let's say for the sake of argument that in half of car-bike cyclist fatalilties "bad behavior" on the part of the motorist is the major factor. Of those, what percentage do you believe the bad behavior "originates from the sense of driver entitlement"? Frankly, I would be surprised if it was 5%, and would not be surprised if it was less than 1%. But even if it's 10% (double the most I think it could possibly be, that's 10% of half). Assuming about 800 cyclists are killed per year, that means, at most, we would save about 40 cyclist lives per year. You say, that's great, 40 lives are worth saving, no matter the cost. But imagine if we spent all that focus and energy within the cycling community, and a fraction of those millions, on bringing about change in cyclist behavior instead... we could save not just up to 80 lives per year, but hundreds of lives per year, and countless more injuries. This is why I'm an advocate of best practices in traffic cycling.