rsbob 

I am on NextDoor very occasionally, which is a whiney app where people vent and disparage others and sometimes help one another. Just a couple of days ago there was an outcry against fast cyclists using a MUP which runs 1.5 miles with a 5%-7% grade. Their real beef is with the ones bombing down the MUP. Not smart. Adjacent to the trail is a 4 lane road with very generous shoulders that many cyclists use (myself included). Their complaint was that “these” inconsiderate cyclists weren’t using the bike lanes where they belonged. A number of people chimed in, (a very NextDoor thing to do) and ranted about not using the bike lanes and how inconsiderate the bikers are and they need to be ticketed for being reckless. The ironic and funny thing is, there are no signed bike lanes anywhere in that town or on that specific road - just wide shoulders. So we can do everything right (of course there will always be f-ups that do stupid things, like the ones bombing down the MUP at 20+, I hit 40 going down the adjacent roadway today so people can really go extremely fast on the MUP) but the few f-ups and people’s misperceptions of reality can put the rest of us in a bad light. As the saying goes, “Perception is reality”.

Maelochs

On a different but related hand-like appendage ... campaigns to change perception by changing behavior Do work, eventually, just as the prior perceptions were to some degree influenced by behavior.

I have seen the behavior of drivers and cyclists change over a span of decades, and pretty much entirely for the better. Social changes .... take a lot of time. Most people tend not to be overly ratio0nal or analytical, but ... attitudes Do change. "Studies" proving they don't ... defy reality as I have experienced it. Maybe it is because "studies" only mark a very short period of time. But essentially, some guy saying "Nothing ever changes" contradicts experience. yes, sadly, I will believe my lying eyes over some scholastic with an eye on a higher degree or who needs to get published to get tenure.

Better behavior does seem to make a difference ... whether it is a result of other changes or causes other changes or whether the web of human interaction is way more complicated .... things do change. They even improve, in some (rare) cases. Conditions for road cyclists (and off-road, for that matter) have dramatically improved in the course of my years of riding. I cannot say why, but I can see that they have.

Paul Barnard

20 years ago when a cycling group in South MS first formed, the motorists on the rural county roads didn't quite know how to take us. There were some dangerous and discourteous interactions. The group was cooperative and friendly. Over time the relationship became quite good. Even when passing a group of us, motorists will often wave. Of course we work them around us as soon as practicable. I can't help but think had local cyclists been more cooperative and less militant that the bike lanes in Algiers (from my previous link) wouldn't have been removed. It's not often that we see backwards steps in bicycle infrastructure and safety.

andydallas

I ride at a lake in the middle of Dallas, (white rock lake), my physician lives just off of the main road around the lake. He said a couple of weeks ago a rider he never saw, crossed the street at about 20 MPH (he was guessing), he showed me a picture of the intersection, Ive been through it a hundred times. You can easily see the traffic coming from the right, but you can;t see traffic from the left until you are about 3-5' from the intersection, a stop sign for the bike, nothing for people on the road, and the guy on the bike ran through the intersection in front of the car driving down the road.

Why someone would blow through that intersection ( maybe trying to get a KOM) I dont' know, but you can bet we made another enemy out of a resident with that dumb move. It would have been entirely the cyclist fault.

daihard 

And the flip side of the coin is, your behaviour, no matter how "good" or "legal" or "considerate," will most likely not change that negativity towards the cyclists in general.

Maelochs

There is no actual evidence to support either side .... but we can discuss human nature. if a group of strident and somewhat self-righteous crusaders invade public meetings and push through certain legislation, it can annoy people who might even approve of the legislation.

On the other hand .... my personal experience is that people drivers are better to cyclists than they used to be.

I don't even assume that "negativity toward cyclists" is a common let alone widespread .... whereas by my personal experience it used to be---or at least a lot more common.

macattack71

I got commended the other day by a driver, saying thanks for stopping, as everyone else they see blows thru the sign. I will always disengage a leg at a stop where i meet another vehicle, and have a standoff if necessary. Sometimes people will demand me to go, but with a foot on the ground, its obvious I am not taking off quick anymore, and the next car will go.

daihard 

My personal experience in the Seattle city limit is similar to yours. I feel that more drivers are aware of and pay more attention to people biking around them today than 10 years ago. My gut feeling, without evidence, is that it's more because of more people biking as well as more bike infrastructure that makes people biking stand out than because of their behaviours.

rsbob 

I used to live in the city of Sammamish, Wa about 15 mins east of Seattle. There is a main thoroughfare which cuts though the city which has longish downhills which has four lanes. During the roadways planning session, before I moved there, there was a debate as how to handle pedestrians and cyclists. There was a rather vocal group that insisted the roadway be developed with extra-wide sidewalks to accommodate both. The irony is that there are plenty of driveways and intersections on these long up hill and downhill sections where a bike can easily hit 35 MPH. The group not being cyclists were not cognizant of the speed potential of bikes either tangling with pedestrians or with cars crossing the sidewalk or frequent curb cuts which cyclists would be forced to use. The real irony is that sidewalk 95% vacant of pedestrians because the distances are too great to get anywhere by foot and everyone drives or gets a ride. The speed on the street is 35-40MPH with zero room for a shoulder for cyclists, so either they ride in the road and take their life in their own hands or are forced to use a huge sidewalk and risk getting hit by cars crossing it to enter or exit the roadway. The self-righteous crusaders got a very safe, unused sidewalk for their kids and created a real hazard for cyclists. Way to go!