Noddy

Move along nothing to see here.

hueyhoolihan

i've managed, despite my best efforts to avoid them, a few bone-headed maneuvers over the last couple of years that had me desperately wanting to catch up to the driver of an automobile and apologize. but, alas, i'm often not up to the task.

Paul Barnard

I guess people are really justified in loathing motorists.

Larry77

We used to have a few mentally disabled people that couldn't drive ride bikes all around town, they often did stuff like this ending themselves in the hospital. Let's assume this guy was listening to his voices telling him to smash the purple bunnies on the road with his tires...

canklecat

When I see hasty generalization fallacies used to define a group by the flaw observed in an individual it's no wonder most people seem like morons.

At least at times -- as Umberto Eco described morons in Foucault's Pendulum: Even morons occasionally arrive at the right answer for the wrong reasons through faulty logic. Usually moronic thinking arrives at the wrong answer through flawed reasoning from incomplete data or flawed analysis.

Here's my own recent moronic experience...

Tuesday an impatient driver honked at me while passing and stopped to fuss at me about hogging the lane and failing to keep up with the prevailing speed of traffic.

He and I were the only people on the road within hundreds of yards, on a road I specifically choose because it's lightly traveled at the times I ride.

I had moved from the right edge of the road to the center only within 20 yards of an intersection, where the single lane widens and diverges into a straight-ahead and right turn lane -- because in my experience on this road drivers who plan to turn right will right hook me if I stay too far right.

I had checked my mirror and the only car I could see, some distance back, was slowing to turn into a car repair shop driveway.

Apparently Mr. Impatient Traffic Hall Monitor was behind that driver. He gunned his engine as soon as the car ahead of him turned. And he was inconvenienced for about 20 yards, at most. But he decided that was enough to delay his very important journey even more to lecture me incorrectly about traffic law. I suggested we call the police to correct his erroneous assumptions. He decided not to wait.

Now, in reviewing my video, I got all of that part right.

But here's what I got wrong -- I remember him as driving a new, late model black SUV. It wasn't. It was a four door sedan. I got the color, newness and general shape right in my memory. But it wasn't an SUV.

My recollection was biased by the generalizations I've experienced in this area, which is near my neighborhood. Over the past couple of years most of the overtly rude drivers, catcalling and right/left hooking me have been driving pickups and SUVs. So I have a chip on my shoulder about those vehicle shapes. Never mind that the vast majority of drivers of pickups and SUVs I'm around don't drive recklessly. Or that a couple of notable close calls and near misses were committed by drivers of four-door and two-door cars.

The guy in the car *seemed* like a pickup/SUV type driver. So I assigned that type of vehicle to my memory.

So when we acknowledge that it's no wonder people hate cyclists because of isolated examples such as the OP's, we're saying most people are morons. Which is true. We're all prone to moronic thinking at times.

MattoftheRocks

@canklecat quoting Eco just brightened the heck out of my already shiny day, thanks!

BobbyG

Yesterday on the ride home through the park in sight of the velodrome I saw a runner coming towards the street. I thought 'that selfish idiot is going to run right in front of me" and he did! I honked my bike horn and at that moment I saw the painted cross walk. There was no sign, but there was a crosswalk. I immediately hit the brakes and veered rights and shouted "You have the right of way! I'm sorry, you have the right of way!"

I told a coworker the next morning and he said the runner, if he didn't have earbuds in probably just heard the yelling and not the words.

But back onto your thought, yes, people like to grab an isolated example and use it to define a whole group. It's easier.

jon c. 

I was riding this evening and came upon a jogger approaching a T intersection. I knew she didn't see me and would turn right in front of me to come back up my lane. So I slowed to a near stop and let her turn. She was a bit startled when she finally saw me, but we exchanged a pleasant greeting and went on our way. It's nice to live in a place where everyone gets along.

02Giant 

You're in Texas, doesn't everyone drive an SUV or a truck...

Maelochs

I thought you were going to say people hate cyclists because they come here and see what cyclists think about them.

I have an "I'd love to meet that guy again ...and apologize" story ... but usually I am right in every possible way and everyone else is wrong. Handy, that.

canklecat

Heh! Reminds me of Douglas Adams' anecdote about competing with another traveler over a packet of cookies at a train station, each man thinking "Why is this stranger eating my cookies?"

PepeM

Reminded me of this one for some reason.

Garilia

Wow, Eco and Adams in one thread. Brilliant! Adding a little Gaiman to the mix

“I feel like I'm in a world with its own sense of logic. Its own rules. Like when you're in a dream, and you know there are rules you mustn't break. Even if you don't know what they mean. I'm just going along with it, you know?” (American Gods)

BobbyG

Peaceful, courteous co-existence? Don't let me catch you doing it again.

BobbyG

I like to say "it's not you VS traffic, you ARE traffic!" But apparently I gave into my lizard-brain territorialism and didn't extend my spirit of cooperation to the runner.

canklecat

I just referenced that in the context of the current Kathy Griffin kerfluffle. Too much angst and apologizing over a fairly conventional trope of artists for centuries.

rumrunn6

Maelochs

Cankle ... I thought you were Floridian. Now I see you moved to the only place worse? I hope the riding is better.

I just wanted to add something reasonable to the thread ... I have a feeling after certain comments, that chance might be receding rapidly.