There is a strange personality disorder found in many bicyclists. If I was a graduate student in Psychology, it would be my doctoral thesis topic. On the one hand, they are utterly vulnerable. Completely at the mercy of any angry, crazy, impaired person out there. And, simultaneously they are aggressive and combative. Often intentionally infuriating drivers by the usual tricks, lane straddling, passing lines on the sidewalk, disregarding the traffic signals, etc.
Its really fascinating to see. I must admit it. Its like seeing the neighbor’s vicious dog attack the parking meter ticket guy. Pure amusement.
But, it is none the less highly dysfunctional. Bicycling on roadways is the absolutely hands down the most dangerous form of exercise based recreation. So, who are those people?
So, who are those people?
Arrogant fools.
As noted throughout this thread, bicycle riders are largely American-hating leftists. They take joy in thinking that they're sticking it to Exxon. They hate the type of vehicles that red-blooded American drives: trucks, SUVs and Hummers.
From my perspective, in the same camp as bicyclists are those who ride mass transit. Here in the Dallas area, there's DART -- the ridership of which looks mostly like Zimbabwe. Bicycle riders are latte-sipping liberals and mass transit riders are third-world liberals.
By the way, ask anyone from Georgia about thee mass transit system in Atlanta, MARTA. The meaning of the abbreviation is quite funny...and spot on.
I do most of my riding on low traffic gravel roads but also use paved surface streets. In my 61 years I have probably driven motor vehicles of all sizes 400,000 miles. I have probably ridden bicycles 20,000 miles. With that experience, I have seen aXXholes on both 2 wheels and 4 or 6. But trust me, excluding children on bikes, the idiot and malicious drivers outnumber, percent wise, the riders by a factor of 5.