I was in Brighton for the first time a couple of weeks back. I was really impressed by the number of bikes until I saw the nobby selfish way far too many of them were being ridden.
Mainly a result of nurture rather than nature, I'd suggest (having lived there for quarter of a century).
Brighton is in many ways like London, but missing an entire cardinal point (no roads in South Brighton
) - it's either fast and furious or going-nowhere on the roads. Add-in a feeling amongst the locals that various Councils have over time all been more-or-less anti-car/taxi/motorist (probably not without cause) and you have an ideal recipe for a confrontational environment. It's really not a fun place to drive, and not cheap or easy to park.
As a cyclist, being forced into the gutter was relatively commonplace (generally deliberate, I reckon) and most regular commuter cyclists I knew had experienced multiple collisions with motor vehicles - usually involving written-off bikes and/or broken bones.
I barely rode at all in Brighton - choosing to walk or take buses (which are extremely-well catered-for) not merely because the roads were so dicey, but also because most useful cycle routes were shared with pedestrians: many of those were visitors - quite often foreign and/or inebriated. This made any forward progress halting, demanding and frustrating.
Not that any of this excuses individual bad behaviour.
