Why are cyclists so angry?

[YoJesse]

lighthearted

It's only Tuesday and already I've had 'get out of the road' and 'wake up you dozy cow' thrown at me. But I should count myself lucky because yesterday a cyclist shouted I'm gonna stab you in the fucking neck' at a bloke he almost ran over!

Shouldn't all the endorphins make them really happy? It's worse than road rage round here.

Moving very soon to somewhere more rural so hoping cyclists will be more your 'call the midwife, big wicker baskets filled with flowers' types than your 'neck stabbing' types.

[mamamea]

I don't think it's that cyclists are angry, more that other people on the road are cunts. I am in Indonesia and it's total chaos and lots of traffic, and people pretty much never get pissed off, even if they are stuck in traffic for HOURS. People in England are just VERY ANGRY.

[TheCraicDealer]

I've had a few run-ins in the last few months with angry cyclists. My works car park is in a back street is the city centre and it's used as a rat run by motorists and cyclists alike. Because of the pedestrians, parked cars, people on bikes, lorries, bin lorries, etc you need to peep'n'creep coming out of junctions. Once however, I got the fingers from a fella speeding the wrong way up a one-way road on a bike as I was creeping forward at a give way. There was also a newly installed cycle lane on the other side which he just apparently didn't care to use. The more recent time, a woman on a bike glared at me and mouthed 'bitch' as I'd encroached a bit on the cycle lane as the junction wasn't clear (black cab parked on double yellows during rush hour) to move on out, which meant she had to scoot round me.

I get that you have to be aggressive and it must be wearing having to constantly cycle defensively, but we all have to share the road. A little bit of consideration for other road users would foster more good will in people like me who think cyclists aren't the devil.

[Doggity]

As a car driver who has never ridden a bike due to physical issues, I feel I can be impartial. I drive a lot for work and find that it is the non-cyclists who are more aggressive. I've rarely seen an angry cyclist, whereas if we're held up for even a minute or two, I see impatient motorists banging their steering wheels, flashing and beeping. Fuckers. I'd rather pootle behind a slow cyclist than risk killing them, even if I'm a minute or two later than I would like.

[FedUpBird]

cyclists in Germany are very happy, the cycle paths are amazing, cars actually have to stop and wait for cyclists and pedestrians. Woe betide any car driver who hits a cyclists as you're in the shit massively

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

Men travelling anywhere are often grumpy and impatient, i find. Drivers and cyclists. Sorry to any easy going men who read that :)

[ShotsFired]

The sheer amount of confirmation bias on this thread is astounding.

Why do the haters seem to lump ALL cyclists in with each other? Is it that hard to understand that some people are just wankers, whether they are on foot, on pedal, on a horse, in a vehicle etc etc? You see those and your confirmation bias klaxon goes into overdrive and ascribes one wanky person's individual behaviour as representative of the entire cohort of people who do that activity?

Why don't the non-wanky cyclists/horseriders/drivers pedestrians count (i.e. the vast majority of other road users), if you are so keen on stereotyping people?

[ApostrophesMatter]

It's time they had to pay for a licence and have a registration plate so the idiots can be filmed and reported.

[SchnitzelVonKrumm]

No one has mentioned the classic "parent thrusts pushchair containing small child into the cycle path then steps forward to see if anyone's coming" move. I'm a very slow moving cyclist but have come off twice swerving to avoid the innocent children of these fuckwits.

[SchnitzelVonKrumm]

Cycling does make you realise how very badly most people drive (bear in mind most cyclists are also drivers). I think you should have to do a certain number of hours out cycling before you can get a driving licence, disabilities excepted.

[ShotsFired]

I got a dashcam for my car a few months ago. I could easily fill the memory card with just footage of truly dangerous and aggressive driving I see on a daily basis. That's not even counting the minor misdemeanours that are the norm for some people.

I also live in an area where cycling is huge (and I am one of them). I don't recall ever seeing (or being) a cyclist behaving in a way that would warrant a spot on the dashcam hall of shame.

[acasualobserver]

Why do the haters seem to lump ALL cyclists in with each other?

Because, despite being "lighthearted" that's exactly what this thread is designed to do. Shameful stuff.

[user1468488303]

I think its because we constantly feel like we're about to be killed by cars at every moment.
A friend of mine was killed by a truck, I was hit by a car, my sister was clipped by a bus. It makes cyclists feraful and cranky.

[OhPuddleducks]

Flies in teeth? That'd be enough to piss me off.

[DataColour]

I cycle everyday to work, and thankfully the majority of the time I've had no trouble with motorists.
The thing that annoys me most is the fact that vehicles are allowed to park on cycle lanes. When I'm cycling with my DCs it would be a whole lot safer if we didn't have to weave in and out of parked cars. What is the point of a cycle lane?!

[FeckArseIndustries]

Is it because loads of them get killed on the road and there is rarely justice when this happens because people just shrug and assume it was their own fault, whereas actually drivers often don't drive safely around them out of impatience, frustration etc, and also because everyone hates them?

[Dowser]

I put this on the bikers thread

I hate overtaking pedal cyclists on country roads.
In the wake of chris board mans mothers death it made me reflect on the country roads I've just driven down from north to south Wales.

Everyone has a right to be on the roads but they scare me witless when their tired legs are giving out as they are going up another hill and I'm giving them a wide berth and dreading an idiot coming along in the other direction driving like toad of toad hall.

I'd get it and quite possibly they would too. Really, really terrifies me . The thought that they wobble and I clip them.

I can understand the attraction , nice summers day, let's go for a spin but honestly you couldn't pay me enough to take up cycling on britains roads as a hobby.

[ShotsFired]

Why do the haters seem to lump ALL cyclists in with each other?

Because, despite being "lighthearted" that's exactly what this thread is designed to do. Shameful stuff

Oh ok. So as to join in, yesterday I was waiting at a temporary traffic light (on my bike). A car came up behind me and sat there, revving his engine hard, completely unnecessarily. I was genuinely fearful he was going to try and overtake me, even though I was turning right soon after the lights changed.

So basically that must mean ALL DRIVERS are absolute tosspotting menaces and shouldn't be allowed on the road - after all, it was built for cyclists in the first place.

Reductio ad absurdum

[SallyVating]

They're extra grumpy because they've got sweaty bum cracks and mega chafing

[ShotsFired]

Dowser - the thought that they wobble and I clip them

Drivers are meant to give bikes the same room they would when passing a car (or horse etc) - so a good full metre or more (Rule 163). I may wobble a bit on a hill, but I've never wobbled that far!

So if you are doing that, you have nothing to worry about

[VenusOfWillendorf]

I am a very serene cyclist, complete with wicker basket

I love cycling to work, glad to not be in a bus or a tram (I don't own a car, I'd only spend a fortune on parking it). Don't think I've ever shouted at anyone - apart from the odd Hello to someone I know. I do get annoyed when people park in the cycle lanes. Thankfully it doesn't happen very often here - they get fined too much!

[DuckAndPancakes]

In reference to comments about buses pulling out in front of cyclists.....
May I refer you to the Highway Code, where it states that buses have priority and when pulling out, or indicating to do so, you should let them go.

[heron98]

So you're irritated because you have to drive slowly behind a cyclist for a few minutes? Perhaps you're the angry one.

[YoJesse]

sally I think we've all got sweaty bum cracks today (but theirs must be on a new level!

[BuggersMuddle]

Because we're fed up with the type of shitty attitudes spouted by some on this horrible thread. MAMILS, ref to Lycra etc.

Sadly it carries over into real life. I've had piles of (unwarranted) abuse whilst on my road bike & wearing Lycra, simply for being there. Oddly I've never had any directed to me in less cycling specific get up whilst on an MTB or utility bike. Odd that...I'm still the same cyclist (and arguably better on that road bike).

Up here you can take your chances in the road for commuting (and most likely have near misses it get yelled at) or you can use one of our arterial cycle routes, created at great expense to get cyclists away from traffic. On these you can look forward to people with multiple dogs off lead / free range toddlers bleating about shared use while paying zero attention. Can't win. Oddly though, this doesn't make me think all pedestrians / dog walkers / drivers are arseholes though...because tarring and entire group with the same brush like that would be a bit twattish

[JasperDamerel]

I don't drive or cycle. And from a pedestrian's point of view pretty much all the obnoxious and dangerous road use I experience has come from motorists (or pedestrian who cross roads unsafely). I have sometimes seen cycle road rage incidents, but they've always been when a cyclist has been in genuine danger from a careless or malicious diver.