I'm no psycologist but in my 50+ years I have observed a few things about human behavior and com to some conclusions.il padrone wrote:Yes, I'd agree with this.bychosis wrote:a more considerate/polite community where everyone goes about their business and if there is someone going to affect their business a compromise is made on both sides to ensure that neither is affected much.
But I cannot see how one road user (cyclist or otherwise) going through a red light next to me, directly interferes with my business. I just stay put, humm a little tune and get on with my ride when the light goes green. I do the same in the car, and while I acknowledge the danger the other's action presents, I do not believe their action leads to ME being somehow held responsible
People do not generally react logically. Motorists who are stressed and frustrated on seeing someone doing the wrong thing, associated the incident with their frustrations. It is important to understand that peoples brains work by pattern matching, not logic. This is an invaluable device that allows people to quickly order their world view through discrimination. Discrimination can be a good thing as it allows people to quickly recognise and avoid adverse situations. However it also allows them to transfer emotions like frustrations via tenuous and incorrect links to individuals or groups. This is the basis of many forms or discrimination and hatred we are all familiar with. No group is immune to this, it only requires a easy recognition and currently cyclists are in the frame. Some of this discrimination is unavoidable as obviously we are generally slower, increasing the frustrations. However we bring some of it on ourselves and each other by our behavior. So all I am really saying is that we have the power to attenuate this to some degree but it does require cleaning up our act. I happened to pick on the running red light thing as an example as it seems endemic. We like to criticise motorist attitudes here as being a law unto themselves but really we do the same thing as if we have some right to make a call on disobeying road rules when they doesn't suit us. Sure I'm a cyclist too, I understand how important it is to maintain momentum and how it seems a silly requirement to stop when there is no traffic or peds but the law doesn't recognise such arguments nor does it confer any right to individuals to make such a call. A red light means stop for everyone, no exception. It's not a moral point, it's a legal one and a practical one in terms of doing something towards improving the current situation. If you don't stop you will almost certainly be observed even if you don't know it and that just reinforces the association of frustrations on all cyclists as a group (discrimination). Your behavior on the road affects as all.
Regards,
Ken