Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
A long time ago in my early days on BF I mentioned an incident with a pickup truck. A couple of posters wasted no time in taking me to task for "profiling" pickup drivers. I didn't mean to do that and walked back my comments, but after many years here, its clear that there is something majorly wrong with pickup drivers as a group. I don't want to hear anyone defend them anymore. I'm fed up with the culture of lawlessness and indifference to social norms that pervades that sector of humanity. That driver should never again see daylight. Others who don't commit mass murder, but commit grievous bodily injury to innocent cyclists and peds should be made to kneel as their licenses are set on fire and burned to ashes before their eyes.
I can see why it's tempting to make that generalization. I drove a pickup for years until just recently and even I was occasionally tempted to regard PU drivers as uncouth drunken yahoos. Looking back over the past 40 years at many of the accidents I've stopped to render assistance before paramedics arrived, it sure seems like many of 'em were pickups and SUVs with drivers who smelled like alcohol. But that's probably just selective memory, bias confirmation and a weighted sampling group.
Pickups and SUVs are ubiquitous here and there are far more truck drivers who don't cause any grief. We just don't notice them.
Since resuming cycling last year I've noticed that, by far, most of the drivers who yell at me are in pickups and SUVs, usually young white men. I've had at least three instances within a mile of my home with young white men in beat up old SUVs yelling at me to get off the road -- usually from a very safe distance, after making a big melodramatic production of changing lanes (they could have passed me safely without a lane change) and swerving back after passing me safely. I just shrug it off. If they're not physically threatening me, I'm not gonna worry about it.
Ironically, I was recording a video blog a few months ago after chattering about this very topic with some folks after a group ride. Their opinion was that dually drivers were the worst. I hadn't noticed that particular group. So while I was riding home, narrating an otherwise boring ride video, sure 'nuff, a dually pickup passed me with the driver and passenger -- both young white men -- hooting at me. Not cussing or even angry, just hooting like drunken yahoos. Kinda funny.
But to be fair, I've had many more positive experiences with truck drivers. In fact, when I got my first flat tire out in the boonies last year and forgot my pump, a pickup driver gave me a lift home. And the same fellow stopped to offer me a ride a couple of months later when I was caught in the rain -- I thanked him and declined that time because I was already soaked and didn't want to mess up his truck, and was only a mile or so from home.
And along that same rural route other folks in pickups and SUVs have waved me on ahead when we've arrived simultaneously at stop sign intersections, or just given a good natured wave because they've seen me riding there many times before.
Offhand, as I recall, the actually aggressive (passing much too closely, cutting me off or right hooking) and distracted or rude drivers have been in new sedans, ranging from mid-priced to luxury models. About 2/3s driven by women, perhaps a third were men closer to my age (50something). Not pickups and SUVs. Those guys just seem to be noisy and petulant.
Still statistically insignificant for identifying real patterns. Just casual observations.