Re:Message from cycling heaven: it’s not that fantastic here
by arp242 on Sunday October 24, 2021 @03:24PM
(#28981062)
I'm from the Netherlands originally, but also lived and cycled in England, Ireland, and New Zealand.
All the cities I lived in had comparatively decent cycling infrastructure, far from what it's like in NL, but still decent enough.
Now, I've never been to NYC but the problem there was that some people seem to hate cyclists no matter what you do. You can behave 100% correct and with care but you will still get people who feel you ought not to be on the road at all and will still try and drive you off the road no matter what you do, or they will pass you as close as possible just to annoy you, or where there's really no space at all. I've had people stop their cars just to hurl abuse at me, God know why. Things like that.
99.9% of drivers can be perfectly fine and just 0.1% are these kind of people, then you're going to run in to one of them every few days or weeks depending on how much you cycle, simple because you'll easily encounter over a hundred cars in a journey (And in reality, it seems to be far more than 0.1% unfortunately).
It's this kind of aggression, harassment, and violent assault that makes cyclists cycle on pavements. No matter what you do you're going to get shit, and at least on the pavement it's not dangerous.
Hell, on multiple occasions I've received shit for cycling on the cycle path.
You need to be an exceptionally cheerful and positive person to not become somewhat jaded by all of this.
Or let me put it in this way: if a large group of normal people are doing something wrong while performing in just one activity, then there's probably something wrong with the system surrounding that activity and not all of those people.
All the cities I lived in had comparatively decent cycling infrastructure, far from what it's like in NL, but still decent enough.
Now, I've never been to NYC but the problem there was that some people seem to hate cyclists no matter what you do. You can behave 100% correct and with care but you will still get people who feel you ought not to be on the road at all and will still try and drive you off the road no matter what you do, or they will pass you as close as possible just to annoy you, or where there's really no space at all. I've had people stop their cars just to hurl abuse at me, God know why. Things like that.
99.9% of drivers can be perfectly fine and just 0.1% are these kind of people, then you're going to run in to one of them every few days or weeks depending on how much you cycle, simple because you'll easily encounter over a hundred cars in a journey (And in reality, it seems to be far more than 0.1% unfortunately).
It's this kind of aggression, harassment, and violent assault that makes cyclists cycle on pavements. No matter what you do you're going to get shit, and at least on the pavement it's not dangerous.
Hell, on multiple occasions I've received shit for cycling on the cycle path.
You need to be an exceptionally cheerful and positive person to not become somewhat jaded by all of this.
Or let me put it in this way: if a large group of normal people are doing something wrong while performing in just one activity, then there's probably something wrong with the system surrounding that activity and not all of those people.