Originally Posted by
Lemond1985
I'm gonna play devil's advocate here, and argue that the average driver sees so much selfishness and flagrant contempt for traffic laws committed by "average" bicyclists, it's a wonder they don't run us all down. I'm not talking about the 10% who stop at red lights and stop signs, and ride on the correct side of the road. We're a mere curiosity compared to the other 90%.
I wish there was something I could do to rehabilitate our image among motorists, but for each "me", I've got nine people texting on their phones while riding on the wrong side of the road blowing red lights. That's a tough image to overcome when the vast majority of bicyclists ride this way, and motorists are usually correct to assume the person they see on a bike is deaf, dumb, blind, brain dead, and cares nothing about the traffic laws designed to protect them. Until a crash occurs, and then they're suddenly all about law and order.
You seem to be conflating the age-old issue of "people on bikes" vs. recreational cyclists. However, with respect to recreational cyclists - This mindset is tired, played out and untrue. "The average driver" goes several thousand miles without seeing a cyclist. The average cyclist is at least as law-abiding as the average motorist and probably even moreso. Traffic laws are not designed to protect cyclists, at all.
Motorists hate cyclists for precisely two reasons:
1. They perceive any and all recreational cyclists as in the way, on
their road.
2. There are no repercussions when they harbor and subsequently act out that hatred.
There is no way to rehabilitate the public perception of cyclists among motorists because the latter doesn't hate cyclists for what they do. They hate cyclists for what they are - on
their road in
their way.
Motorists also don't hate lycra-clad road cyclists because of how street-clothes wearing people-on-bikes ride - or vice versa.