We Are Too Nice

[Amanda P]

How fab it would be, if you were riding two abreast like that, and a car came up behind and the driver indicaed somehow that you should single up, and you did...

With the inner cyclist moving out to primary in front of the outer one....

Preferably with a highly courteous wave of the 'there you are, sir, sorry to be a problem' sort.

Seriously, you're right of course, but as we all know, very few drivers understand about primary anyway, so the logic is lost on them.

Funny, Mrs Uncle Phil and I quite often find ourselves doing exactly what you describe.

 

[BentMikey]

Instant demerit to Bruce! That sort of logic is an immediate indicator of poor attitude to me.

 

[Bruce]

Instant demerit to Bruce! That sort of logic is an immediate indicator of poor attitude to me.

If the cap fits!

 

[Brains]

You assume they care.
They don't. They really don't

 

[GrumpyGregry]

There's an inaccurate assumption at work that assertiveness is likely to lead to violent confrontation. In fact, being calmly assertive is often the best way to head off confrontation, because it challenges the power dynamic that is making the confrontation possible. When someone is bullying you from the safety of a tonne of metal, they are usually doing so because they are expecting you to be intimidated and to let them have their way, and also because they can abuse you as they pass and then not stick around to face you. You'd be amazed at how unscary the most burly, loud-mouthed motorist usually becomes when an unarmed cyclist taps gently at the window and makes the winding-down sign. Defensive and rude, sometimes, but not scary. All you need is to take away their advantage...

In essence we are not 'too nice' we are 'too afraid'. We all to often collude with the drivers dominance on the roads and allow them to bully us into the gutter or onto the pavement cyclepath where they think we belong.

Holding primary, or any other position you have chosen of your own free will to take, is empowering and assertive at one and the same time. It certainly isn't confrontational.

Riding two abreast such that the outermost rider is in primary is perfectly acceptable and drivers who don't understand this are ill educated oafs. The throttle pedal works both ways.

 

[ComedyPilot]

I was out yesterday with Miss CP (in her trailer behind me) and Mrs CP on her bike. We were riding through a village and approaching a parked car on our side (with another parked on the other side just past it - making a staggered obstacle) I moved out to go through and Mrs CP was right behind me. Sure enough, tosser in a skyline just HAS to get past. He accelerates through as we go through. I anticipated him doing this and swung left into the side, but Mrs CP was still alongside the car, so was squeezed a little.

So, despite riding assertively, and with a toddler in tow, some people just don't give a toss, and WILL go past regardless of safety concerns.

Their ONLY defence can be, 'Well, I didn't hit you!'

 

[GrumpyGregry]

An unpleasant situation.

Surely one option would have been to either slow down before the cars so he has his opportunity to overtake before the obstacle, waving him through if need be, thus you are in control making him do what you want him to do or, more assertively imo, come out nice and wide to the right yourself on the run in thus blocking him and preventing his overtake? In my experience even tossers in skylines/beemers/audis won't actually drive through you. (Though I wouldn't count on that if it was a Porsche Cayenne)

 

[jonny jeez]

+1 to all those who advocate the general application of "niceness".

Claud, do you really want to take on the mantle of "Sage" to all those large, heavy, myopic and potentially deadly vehicles. As Bentmikey mentions, there are other ways to illustrate these lessons.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to just get on with your journey and try not to get your blood pressure pumped up. If you want to ride two abreast and have a chat along the way, then do it, its your choice...but I know from experience (as do you) that this does antagonise other road users (rightly or wrongly).

Personally If I want to talk to someone, I either ensure that we both pick up a phone, or a pint...each is far easier than chatting while riding...I for one don’t have the lung capacity!!

 

[jonny jeez]

I cycle 4500-5000 miles a year and I dont have even 1% of the problems folk on here seem to have, I cant give a reason why perhaps I am just a little more realistic of what is going on out on the roads and as such a little more accomodating,

coming across as more than a little arrogant there Brucey.

So, just to bring you back down to earth(with the rest of us) with over 7,000 topics and 16,000 replies on this section of the board alone, you should actually have only 0.000006 as many incidents as the board reports

so your average of 1% is in fact over 10,000 time more than the rest of us....statistically.

what on earth are you doing wrong !!

the point I am trying to make is that the stuff we talk about on here is a distaillation of all the many thousands (maybe millions) of hours that commuters spend on bikes...so on average we get a pretty good deal as well...its not just you

 

[Origamist]

This is where segregated paths, Dutch style, come up trumps - they can be "corridors of conviviality". You can chat merrily, side by side and cover considerable distances without having to check over your shoulder every 10secs for a motorist.

 

[theclaud]

+1 to all those who advocate the general application of "niceness".

Claud, do you really want to take on the mantle of "Sage" to all those large, heavy, myopic and potentially deadly vehicles. As Bentmikey mentions, there are other ways to illustrate these lessons.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to just get on with your journey and try not to get your blood pressure pumped up. If you want to ride two abreast and have a chat along the way, then do it, its your choice...but I know from experience (as do you) that this does antagonise other road users (rightly or wrongly).

Personally If I want to talk to someone, I either ensure that we both pick up a phone, or a pint...each is far easier than chatting while riding...I for one don’t have the lung capacity!!

Perhaps I shouldn't have chosen the word "nice". I think I was having some sort of self-indulgent arcane joke based on its slightly different, 18th-century meaning, which is something like "over-obedient to social norms", or "too much concerned with etiquette". There has to be some pay off for reading Clarissa...

I really think that riding two-abreast is the epitome of niceness, in the more usual sense of the word - it is a statement about what road (public) space is for, and a means of reclaiming it in a small way from those who would reduce it to a meaningless space to be traversed as quickly as possible. I have a suspicion that what annoyed drivers as much as anything in the incident I describe in the OP is that we were talking and laughing - car commuters, whose journey is generally miserable, resent the sight of anyone enjoying their use of the road. Does the absurdity of two people who are talking moving out of the way to make room for motorists to carry four empty passenger seats past them not make anybody else want to weep? If being held up because your vehicle is too wide to pass cyclists safely bothers you, there is a very simple solution - leave the car at home...

 

[jonny jeez]

I have a suspicion that what annoyed drivers as much as anything in the incident I describe in the OP is that we were talking and laughing - car commuters, whose journey is generally miserable, resent the sight of anyone enjoying their use of the road. Does the absurdity of two people who are talking moving out of the way to make room for motorists to carry four empty passenger seats past them not make anybody else want to weep? If being held up because your vehicle is too wide to pass cyclists safely bothers you, there is a very simple solution - leave the car at home...

I agree totally with your suspicion.

I would add that the act of enjoyment aggravates drivers of cars even more if that act proves inconvenience to them for even the faintest moment.

I do genuinely agree that this is more likely a form of jealousy (I suffer impatience when in the car and i find riders two abreast myself and so can testify to this latent jealousy).

Equally, I get frustrated when at the checkout and the chap on the till is intent on conversing with his colleague whilst ignoring me throughout the entire transaction process. Perhaps I should really applaud his friendly and sociable attitude.

Human nature?

 

[theclaud]

I agree totally with your suspicion.

I would add that the act of enjoyment aggravates drivers of cars even more if that act proves inconvenience to them for even the faintest moment.

I do genuinely agree that this is more likely a form of jealousy (I suffer impatience when in the car and i find riders two abreast myself and so can testify to this latent jealousy).

Equally, I get frustrated when at the checkout and the chap on the till is intent on conversing with his colleague whilst ignoring me throughout the entire transaction process. Perhaps I should really applaud his friendly and sociable attitude.

Human nature?

No - inequality. The car has a privileged status in our culture, and motorists are considered more important than cyclists and pedestrians. The checkout analogy doesn't hold - it's an entirely different set of social relations (about which much could be said, but probably on another thread).

 

[jonny jeez]

No - inequality. The car has a privileged status in our culture, and motorists are considered more important than cyclists and pedestrians. The checkout analogy doesn't hold - it's an entirely different set of social relations (about which much could be said, but probably on another thread).

True, I can't disagree with that.

By the way. my analogy was not meant to be facetious in any way. It was genuinely the nearest comparison i could think of at the time, i.e. something that I know annoys me a lot but that in reality inconveniences me very little.



I'm trying to think of a better one now....

 

[theclaud]

True, I can't disagree with that.

By the way. my analogy was not meant to be facetious in any way. It was genuinely the nearest comparison i could think of at the time, i.e. something that I know annoys me a lot but that in reality inconveniences me very little.



I'm trying to think of a better one now....

i didn't think it was, JJ. Sorry - I may have cultivated a brusqueness for P&L that doesn't travel...