I honestly think this is a huge factor in violence against cyclists & pedestrians. Drivers think you're automatically beneath them in the societal pecking order if you're walking or biking, so they feel justified or entitled to victimize you.
People do similar shit to other people who they perceive to be poor, such as homeless, maids, delivery drivers, etc.
Although I haven't been subjected to any abuse about it, more than once I have had people make comments about when I'll be able to buy a car, as if finances are why I don't have one. The funny thing is that my income is in the top 5% of the area, and I have enough liquid cash right now to buy almost any car I want outright. I just don't want one.
People make weird assumptions.
People react with incredulity when I tell them I don’t have a car.
I live a 15 minute walk from the center of town and work and the UK has reasonable bus service in most towns so why would I spend thousands on a car and hundreds a month to park a vehicle I never use outside my house.
I cycle for fitness and pleasure though and most car drivers are lovely but we do have the odd dickhead as well.
Negatives? My wife doesn't feel comfortable riding the big bike with kids and there's only one bike with two seats. If the big bike goes into the shop, things get complicated but the same would go for a car-based commute.
It boils down to the fact that cyclists are unusual in most places in the US, and people are impatient and don't like dealing with things that are out of the ordinary.
But there's also just something dehumanizing about driving cars, which causes aggression. Road rage against other drivers is nearly as big of an issue as the issue of hatred towards cyclists.
Of course, even pedestrians get angry at slow walkers, but when they do so they aren't in command of multiple tons of metal that can move at high velocities.
In the US, I have heard that the statistics around biking to work every day is that the median lifespan is higher, but the variability is much higher.
I barely feel safe around other drivers when I'm in my own car, a marvel of technology designed to keep me safe.
There are parts of the US where the infrastructure and attitude isn't so bad. Not as good as much of Europe, but good enough to make it OK. This is extremely variable, though. I've seen many parts of the nation where I wouldn't dare to bike.
Where I live, for instance, there is a law that requires a percentage of all road funds to be used for bicycle infrastructure. As a result, there is quite a lot of well maintained bike paths that are completely separate from the streets. About 2/3rd of my daily commute route is physically separated from road traffic -- to the point where the only time I even see a car is when they're going across an overpass of the bike path.
...by slowing down, driving on your shoulder, and screaming at you.
Had someone do this at an exit to the freeway once. I had to stop and walk across.
My experience as a pedestrian (I don't ride a bike on the street so I can't speak to that experience) mirrors this. More than once, I've been honked or yelled at for being in an actual, marked crosswalk, crossing the street. (Never mind all of the driver complaints about my use of legal, unmarked crosswalks.)
On a former commute, I regularly got off the bus at a bus stop immediately adjacent to a signaled crosswalk that several of us used. We regularly got honked at by drivers bringing their cars to a screeching halt as the light changed and, once on a holiday, when it was just me and my kid, a driver yelled "if you weren't so fucking poor you wouldn't have to ride the bus!"
> It's really sad, I think it's a symptom of something a lot more sinister happening to the hearts and minds of people in this country
Agreed, and I live in a city where ways of getting to work and around town that aren't a single-occupant vehicle are now in the cumulative majority yet the pushback has increased even more. People regularly write letters to the local paper about how they "openly" use the bus and bike lanes for their cars because "[screw] those entitled people."
I hold a driving license and, until recently, owned a car that I regularly used. This behavior ought to be unacceptable and more actively enforced against but I can only imagine the uproar if an even light "crackdown" happened.