Anger Management?
 

I know the link below treads very close to the boundaries of the P&R forum but I think the issue of the rising level of anger is relevant to A&S. A friend of mine mentioned the other day about the rise in gas prices being a benefit in some respects as it might thin out traffic and may make drivers more careful about jackrabbit starts etc but on the other hand large numbers of angry drivers might be looking to take it out on more vulnerable road users. This might be really bad for us. Whadyer all think?

http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/...486/story.html

No, cyclists don't represent anything that is causing gas prices to rise... while motorists may indeed be angry at having to pay higher prices, there is a subtle solidarity that arises from seeing a cyclist and thinking the cyclist is riding due to "the terrible gas prices."

Plus the media tends to jump on the bandwagon and promote cycling as a way to escape the rising gas prices, so that further reinforces the solidarity.

At least this is what happened the last time gas prices closed on $5.00 a gallon.

Excellent point, that, but you're also relying on logic and reason, which is faulty during good times, and virtually non-existent during bad. I agree that there will be some drivers that will see cyclists and think "Good for you! Stick it to 'em!", but not the majority.

I think what the OP is referring to is a stressed out, over worked, under paid driver now getting nailed with higher gas prices seeing one of us [relatively happy and relaxed] cyclists and taking out his aggression for no good reason at all. Sort of the "s--- runs down hill" principle: Dad yells at mom, mom slaps the kid, the kid kicks the dog, the dog bites the cat and the cat eats the bird...

With the previous spike in gas prices I only saw positive effects for cycling. Some increase in cycling, less aggression on the roads, and an immediate change in the mix of vehicles from big SUVs to smaller cars. The latter happened much too suddenly for it to reflect vehicle purchases - I presume it was from multi-car families choosing to use the more efficient car and leave the SUV in the driveway much of the time.

For the past month, I've been sensing an increased feeling of frustration, impatience in local motorists, and reading this article helps me realize it's just not a local phenomena.

I think if someone is angry and decides to take that anger out on someone who is vulnerable, that person has a serious problem.

If people bring their anger onto themselves, they only have themselves to blame.

Ironically, if they got out of a car, and onto a bike, maybe they'd feel better.

In a study by the University of Surrey, car commuters reported having the "most stressful" commutes, while cyclists saw their journeys as "interesting and exciting."

Simonetti and I draw to a stop outside his office building, two people on bikes amid Midtown gridlock. I ask him why he does it. "I have a tremendous feeling of accomplishment," he says. "No matter what else happens in the day, I can feel good about the ride. There aren't many other things that make me feel that way."

How many people can say that about their commute?

Good read that article was.

off the top of my head, I can think of at least 3 threads that appeared in A&S on this issue

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ive%20impaired

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=ICBC

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ive%20impaired

Gas prices are rising due to the United States wanting us, their citizens, to run out and buy gas saving cars and electric cars, this will help save the auto manufactures and force us spend money which in turns helps the government due to taxes. The government knows this will work because it worked back the late 70's when gas prices went up due to fuel shortage from OPEC, and a large percentage of American citizens dumped their old large cars for pennies on the dollar and bought small gas saving cars. This gas price hike won't stop till it gets to $5 a gallon and people will run out and get fuel saving cars just as they did in the 70's. If a small gas saving car cost $25,000 thats $1,750 to the states (average 7% sales tax) per car, not including registration fees that are higher due to buying a new car which includes excise tax. And that's just taxes we pay, that doesn't include all the tariffs charged on parts coming into the country to go into the assembly of a car, or the tariffs charged on a car coming into this country, or the transportation taxes charged on transporting all those parts and or car.

$5 to $6 per gallon is the break even point for cost effectiveness of buying an electric car vs an average gas consuming car. See where this is going?

There was another thead that ran to a link a while ago called, Aggressive Driving is Emotionally Impaired Driving http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...paired+driving,

here's the paper http://www.drdriving.org/courses/conference_paper.htm it was based on

I saw exactly this. ^^

A few years earlier my city had a bus strike. For the two weeks the strike lasted I found the drivers were significantly less aggressive towards cyclists than I had ever experienced in this city. I think they thought we were only riding because the buses weren't running. When the strike ended, things got back to "normal" quickly.

Unfortunately lessons we learned on how to conserve gas in the 70's have been long forgotten. The buzzword now is "delays waste gas." So therefore being delayed by a cyclist wastes gas and is bad for the environment.

I'm not disagreeing with the positive side of higher gas prices but it also creates a negative side where motorists want to move as fast as possible (no delays = traveling fast) so there is a trend to drive faster and be less tolerant of things that slow motoring down.

Hell, Barry, just about EVERYTHING we as a society learned before 1990 has been forgotten! The sense of entitlement is UNREAL these days! I think the 'Baby Boomer' excesses have been pretty well eclipsed in this new millennium.

It's gonna be a little 'ticklish' out there for a while, as the 'babies' get weaned off the gas pump teat; I imagine I'll see more idiots disrespecting my space by buzzing, honking, hollering and cussing me out (time to re-mount my 'defense').

Actually, though, I'm more concerned about a potential rise in 'bikejacking', when people of no good standing have to park their poseur pimp-wagons and pedal to their suddenly-inadequate jobs. We'll also see a spike in back child-support, and more deadbeat dads sitting in the graybar....

Anyone less than about 35 years old never learned those lessons of the '70s, and they learned how to drive in the past 17 years or so, in the SUV generation.

By far the number one thing that slows motoring down is congestion caused by other motorists. Why isn't there intolerance for that if it's all about saving fuel? And driving faster does NOT necessarily equate to saving fuel. Motorists could probably collectively save far more fuel through a few simple measures (such as modifying their driving style to keep a more steady pace, doing trip-chaining, keeping their tires inflated and their cars maintained, etc), than could be saved by banning all bicyclists from the road completely.

Of course, Americans don't want to take any responsibility for their own part in contributing to the problem. And they don't want any solution to involve them changing their lifestyle or habits in ANY way. Hence the reason so many are hoping for a magical technological solution to all our energy woes to come dropping out of the sky so that they don't have to do anything.

I sincerely believe most Americans would rather bankrupt this country economically, and give up buying everything else that isn't essential for life (really, that's the same thing), just to keep their car-addicted lifestyles. Addiction really is the right word, because everything else gets sacrificed in order to get the fix. I don't believe that most people will change until the disastrous consequences of spending our national treasure on stuff to fuel our cars are totally unavoidable. The only thing that could maybe avert that is a large petroleum tax, and our politicians don't have the guts to give us "tough love".

On the other hand, the young have more of a stake in the longer term future, too. Hopefully they will begin to reject the oil-addicted lifestyle, for economic as well as other reasons (including mental and emotional health). I think there are some hopeful trends in a few isolated groups, but it's not a mass phenomenon yet. To make that leap, it probably needs some sort of unifying ideology with a kernel of truth to it, even if it's sort of a BS one ("going green", "rejection of empty consumerism", "protecting our national treasure", "economic justice for all", etc). Most people just follow the herd, so you have to somehow steer the direction of the herd if you want a serious change.

There was a report out a while back about 20 somethings refusing to get driver's licenses and using mass transit or walking instead...

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010...sire-to-drive/

The lesson we learned in 70s was the gas shortage was manufactured by people with an agenda. Its the same today. But back on the thread I see no reason why drivers should take out anger on cycist. After all that means more gas for people that want to drive their cars.

Uh if you were a driver in the '70's you also learned that jack rabbit starts were bad for your gas mileage and that coasting to a stop was both easy on your mileage and your brakes... we also learned that staying under the speed limit saved gas. We should have learned that 55 MPH was good enough for most cross town highway trips... but few folks got that lesson. We also learned that small economic cars weren't so bad... and thus Toyota got a strong foothold into the American automotive market place by playing on that lesson... one that GM apparently never understood. Of course Toyota then went on to make their cars even larger... a poor lesson they learned from GM. Ford apparently learned something and went on to make a Fiesta that gets great mileage... but they only sell it in Europe... go figure.

I think the reasons for this are pretty simple: it's the prevailing mythology surrounding cars in America. Most Americans have been indoctrinated to believe that bigger = better, especially with respect to safety, but also as far as utility (they even call the biggest passenger cars "sport UTILITY vehicles"). Of course, we have to ask where that mythology came from, and the answer is basically car marketing and cheap gas prices that made it feasible for American cars to be marketed in that way (the marketing would have fallen flat if gas were $7+/gallon). The U.S. is one of the only industrialized countries that continued to pursue a cheap gas at any cost economic strategy after the 70's oil crisis, and this sort of marketing is a natural development given that fact.

That's why I think that counter-propaganda is needed. The car companies are constantly bombarding people with misleading propaganda in favor of big cars, selling the idea that a big car = freedom. So there needs to be some counter to that, or people will continue to believe it. Some of the anger we experience on the road, I think, comes in part from this fundamental clash between what the car companies PROMISE Americans that their car will deliver to them (freedom, excitement, independence, safety...) and what the reality is (that the roads are congested and clogged with traffic, that commuting is a soul-crushing burden, that our cars are constant money sinks, and that our cars take the lives of 40,000 of us per year).

Now where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, the Shell Answer Man. Actually, he made his first appearance in the '60s, but was still going strong in the '70s. It seems odd now that a giant corporation actually ran commercials to help educate Americans.

DM,

"Bikejacking" is something that I have to admit that while I've thought about the possibility that someone might stop me for my bike. But I hadn't considered it as becoming a possible "everyday" occurrence. I guess some of us will possibly be going to the box stores and buying one of their "cheap bikes" to ride as an everyday bike and have a little "vanity plate" that says "My Other Bike is a. . ."

It'll be fun to interesting to see how the HUMMER/SUV crowd will react when they can't afford to fill their gas tanks. How many of those HUMMER/SUV owners do you think will be willing to change their driving habits?

Sure -- they had enough of a shred of social conscience to think that if they actually appeared helpful, they might get more customers to their brand. Now, the API is doing it today, just as a backlash to the anti-oil sentiment after the BP Gulf disaster.

Multi-billion-dollar conglomerate cares about us...sure; if we live longer, they have more chance to get our money, that's all.

Who, me, cynical? NAAAAH.

Last gas price spike there was a rash of Hummers that "accidentally" caught fire.