Cyclist0108

Some folks probably shouldn't watch South Park.

AlmostTrick

People actually swerving towards cyclists seems pretty rare to me, even with some making jokes about it. One can joke about stuff they'd never do or endorse. Had I seen the show I probably would have laughed.

Describing an event as it actually happened is not propaganda.

noimagination

Of course you are free to feel offended, just as the show writers are free to write jokes/dialog that many might consider funny.


What is getting lost here is nuance. Reductio ad adsurdum is not your friend when looking at comedy. Yes, taken to an extreme, the comment could be taken as an incitement to violence against cyclists, but (a) that was not the intent, and (b) unless a person is seriously disturbed they would not take the comment as such. And if they are so disturbed, it is not likely that they would need this bit to push them over the edge. I can understand that someone who lost a loved one or close friend to a cycling accident might not be amused, but that is a tiny fraction of the audience, and if you write comedy that offends absolutely no one you get ... (whatever the comedic equivalent of muzak is).


The stereotypical cyclist is upper middle class, middle aged, white, male, self-important, funny looking and walks like a duck on skates. Rich ground for comedy, you must admit.


(I'm not sayin' how many of those boxes I check.)


------------

Lemond1985

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

― Mel Brooks

livedarklions

I think the idea that the show was promoting this is pretty silly, but I have had the swerving thing occur several times in the last year. It's always from behind, so by the time I realize it's happened, it's over. Doesn't even faze me at this point.

It generally happens on wide state highways with big shoulders, and it's almost always a pickup truck.. It's clear they did it intentionally because they're well over the white line when they pass me and then they move back into the traffic lane immediately.

mcours2006

If the 'cyclist' is your typical MAMIL, I get it. It's easy to poke fun at this creature. Heck, I could be one of them. I don't mind the jab.

If cyclist is anyone who rides a bike--old man/woman carrying grocery bags over handlebar, teenager with backpack riding school, homeless many carrying his wares in panniers, commuter in a long skirt riding a mixte, then no, not even remotely funny to 'swerve at them to scare them.'. Downright moronic, actually.

dynodonn 

Very few motorists of the many that I've encountered, would do a deliberate swerve towards me, with more motorists opting for a high speed close passing maneuver.

genec

Was the audience laughing at the near miss, which clearly was not to threaten, or the "keystone cop" reaction by the cyclists falling like dominoes?

livedarklions

I suspect a lot of this difference in experience is regional variation.
I can pretty much tick off the roads where I expect the swerves. They are all semi-rural The riding there is otherwise too good to let myself get deterred by a very small number of jerks.

High speed close passes happen because the driver is careless, and I experience those too. The swerves are clearly people going out of their way for some reason.

Revoltingest

It is indeed extremely rare. It only happened once to me back in the 70s.
I was lucky to survive the collision, bouncing down the road,
& landing in the ditch. Praise be to helmets, eh.
I don't watch "Blackish", but now it's on my sublithic coprolite list.

dynodonn 

From my regional experience, the local motorists use the high speed pass in their thinking that I would not be able to get any viable information on them, that was the case before I installed video cameras on my bike. I had one motorist do a high speed pass while I was riding in a gutter bike lane, and with their vehicle's right side tires just over the white line, all this done at a 40 mph speed "difference". At the time of that particular pass, I had front and rear cameras, and when I reviewed the video, I could clearly see the motorist maintain their lane, then accelerate, looking directly at me through their windshield while drifting over, then see the motorist's face looking at me in their side mirror after the pass, and continuing to accelerate away, and go back to maintaining their lane at well over the speed limit.

I have had other similar incidents with motorists , in their "lining up" their vehicle, and then accelerate to make a close pass.

JoeyBike

The audience, IMO, was laughing at a motorist, driving like an @$$, "causing" a group of roadies to fall down. Had he caused a group of children to fall off their bikes in a playground, the exact same way, would it have been so funny to the audience? It was funny because they LOATHE cyclists clogging up the road AND especially "goofballs" in race kits acting like they own the road (which the do legally).

Ask yourself: what other group of people, ethnically speaking, would it have been "funny" in a James Bond movie (not a comedy) to cause a low-speed crash? What skin color of person or religion or club? This is because, IMO again, that those cyclists are "aliens from outer space" to most "normal" people and they are hated on some level. Therefore, it was hilarious to see them "get theirs".

These are my feelings of course. I did not conduct an exit poll upon leaving the theater. AND...there is a YouTube video of THAT SCENE to immortalize it!

Thankfully, there are only 900 views, zero comments, and 7 thumbs up, 0 thumbs down.

Pilot321

I've tried to watch the show on several occasions because I though the concept would be funny. It is by far the most openly racist show against White people I have ever seen with the main, male character (the husband) often going off on an anti White rant at the beginning of the show. I thought maybe it was an isolated incident, but I have watched several other episodes where the same thing happens.

Now they are against cyclists too??? NO THANKS.

genec

Go back and watch your clip again... I certainly did not see it as you did.

I saw the chase scene, and yes, the drivers took their eyes off the road... "hollywood!" I saw cyclists climbing the hill... in a tight peloton. I saw the cyclists watch the approaching motorists, and the next scene showed cyclists standing vice riding... and the motorists in the other lane. The cyclists watch the motorists pass and as the lead cyclist turns his head, he falls and dominos the other riders... I saw a "slapstick human domino" scene... I saw no intention by the drivers to threaten or scare the cyclists. I did see motorists acting stupid on the road... but not aggressively toward the cyclists... in any form.

And I cannot believe I am defending motorists behaving badly... but there was no aggression toward the cyclists... none, and it was not portrayed that way at all. Others in this thread saw it just as I did.

genec

Heck, I've had it happen... I've had things thrown at me, I've had passengers reach toward me... all clearly an act of aggression... but indeed it is rare... more often I have experienced near misses by folks that are just unaware and clueless. They don't see you... they look right through you. You are in Casper mode... you are a ghost that only folks that believe in you can see.

The unaware and clueless bother me the most. They don't know we are there... and that happens too often. The aggressive motorists... yeah, they tick me off... but that is a rare event. And when someone honks... hell, it must be "someone I know..." Smile and wave boys, smile and wave.

TMonk

closing per request