Originally Posted by
livedarklions
I understand that this fallacy exists, but is there any evidence that it affects significant numbers of people's understandings of the significance of sharrows? I ride in some places where they are common, and I've never seen any evidence of this belief by drivers or riders regarding the notion that other roads were somehow closed to bicycles/
I'm surprised by the question, so let's turn it around for a moment. Is there any evidence that drivers know what sharrows mean? Even as a cyclist who's been active for 50+ years, very involved in advocacy for decades before I stopped, and should be tuned in, even I'm not sure what they mean. Yes, it's about shared road use, but do they mean a specific lane, or part of the road? Are we to ONLY ride in the marked area? What about in advance of a left? How do they change shared road use? Are they placed on roads deemed preferred for cyclists? Or, are they placed on roads with history of problems?
The fact is that, an all these years, as the markings proliferated, I've NEVER (not once) seen any effort by the various jurisdictions to explain the markings to the public. I guess we're supposed to be psychic.
Back to your question, no I don't know of any studies or evidence, except for the mentioned wife who didn't know, does she count?. So, in lieu of direct evidence let's simply connect the dots and extrapolate. We know about confirmation bias, and I assume you understand assumed converse, so let's overlay that with an estimate of the percentage of drivers who still believe that bikes don't belong on the road, or at least wish that that were true, and drive accordingly, and draw conclusions.
As I said in my post, I doubt that this is an issue with drivers who are generally bike friendly, and won't change their thinking. OTOH - it "confirms" the beliefs of bike unfriendly drivers who will assumed that sharrowed roads are the exception where bikes are allowed, otherwise why would we need them.
BTW- Over in The UK they just completed a study of driver road sign knowledge, and found that a staggering percentage of drivers didn't know what most graphic signs meant, including critical ones like "do not enter".