It’s a lot easier to impose your lifestyle on other people with a multiton death machine that eats children for breakfast.
So yesterday I’m cycling and I come to a spot where the bike lane disappears for a quarter-mile segment, so I slot in at pace behind a shuttle bus (the kind that gives a lovely draft, so I won’t be slowing traffic down) to get me to the next point where there’s a bike lane.
Well, dude in the truck following that bus didn’t want me there, so not only does he get on his horn, he did the Seattle-classic maneuver of accelerating into the merge-space to prevent me merging, and when I came in anyways, tailgated aggressively to the point where he was an arm’s span off my wheel, while I was a bike-length behind that bus. We’re not going slow at this point, I’m pacing in the draft of the shuttle bus at traffic’s speed (something close to 30mph is my guess). For what it’s worth, I’m comfortable drafting like that (I race bikes, it’s common practice, it can be safely done) but being tailgated by a hostile driver in this situation was terrifying.
Now I can understand not liking it when someone merges in front of you (but in my defense, my lane was just ending and it will resume in ~400M and in his defense, maybe he doesn’t know that), but I somehow don’t think vehicular assault is an appropriate response. I can get him thinking it was rude for me to get into traffic in his way, but in the end jumping in the draft of that bus was the least-disruptive way for me to be on that road.
So pretty soon the shuttle reaches its destination and turns off to the right, and by that point we’ve reached the spot where the bike lane begins. I overtook on the left as it turned off and was in the bike lane on the right before man-baby in the truck was able to come through. In the end he wasn’t slowed down in any way, traffic wasn’t disrupted at all, and maybe he thought I was rude, but fuck that guy.
Yeah the reason people shit on bicycles is we inconveniently insist on existing in spaces where accommodating our use is often an afterthought. I don’t like the spots where the bike lane isn’t either, but getting anywhere involves stitching up segments of bike lane with segments of that shit and when I traverse those things I go to the effort to get up to the speed limit to do it- and 99% of drivers are really good about sharing and giving space, it’s that other 1% that consistently seem to think driving like an asshole will teach us a lesson or something.
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I get the point you’re trying to make but to think that a car driver would find another car driver jumping a red light “cute” is laughably naïve
laughably naïve
This just describes lemmy so well
I’ll take naïve Lemmy kids over violently abusive Reddit kids any day though
Fun fact. The average age of Lemmy users is higher than Reddit.
There is still many kids here, but Lemmy is much less “accessible” than Reddit meaning it’s less attractive to younger folks.
It’s a bit of a small culture shock when you compare how Lemmy users who have a job and family talk about their lifes versus Reddit users who obviously still go to school.
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Naïve doesn’t equal “Doesn’t watch cheaply-produced, low-quality comedy” though
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I don’t have the answer, but about 10 years ago I was invited to go on a group ride. I’m more of a commuter, but have done longer rides. Anyway, the behavior of the folks I was with made me never want to ride with others again. It was terrible! I think that is why pedal bikes get lumped into this scenario. You could replace the pickup with a Porsche and I think it would be the same scene.
Same phenomenon with motorcycles, I can’t go on rides with more than two other riders and we need to be able to communicate via intercom. People act like idiots to impress each other when the group gets big enough.
Were they flatulent? Or making fun of the local real estate? Did they play practical jokes on one another? What was with their behaviour??
Haha no, nothing like that. We were riding on a narrow, windy, river road in the mountains. No ability for cars to pass, but many places for slow moving vehicles to move o er and not even have to stop! Essentially, they wanted the cars to share the road with them but they wouldn’t share with the cars. Most people in that area don’t care to pause, but after passing multiple pullouts they can become irritable.
I know this is fuckcars but that particular situation was, for me, untenable.
To be fair, trucks are regarded as egomobiles in the municipal areas of California if they’re all shiny and are obviously not used for heavy work.
In the 1990s and aughts, bicyclists had a bad reputation in San Francisco for messengers being inconsiderate and for bikers being a voting bloc. I don’t know if they are since mass gentrification.
Out in the redder suburbs, all the vehicles are trucks and the women are blond unless they’re behind the Jamba counter. And those shiny trucks frequently have truck-nuts. In those towns, they joke about running bikers off road, and might actually do it if they’re drunk enough.
Throw away bikes AND cars. We need motorcycle infrastructure
/s…unless…?
No. I’ve been to South East Asia. It’s not as fun as you’re imagining (in jest or otherwise)
If only those few stroke motors they weren’t so noisy 😭
“Why does this trend I’m talking about not exist?”
That’s complete bullshit and you know it. People that drive lifted trucks like that are called stupid rednecks that are compensating.
Errr. Have you been on the Internet? People shit on cars and trucks regularly.
What bike is that?
It looks like a gazelle. Not sure of the model. Mine looks very much like it. They’re great city bikes.
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The meme is shitting on both owners of pickup trucks and bicycle owners and basically saying that there both hostile elitist community’s and if the comment section of this sub is anything to go by I would say the meme is correct
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Touch grass asshat.
