I was thinking the same thing myself earlier: why do you see comments often directed at cars (”I hate cars” or “cars suck”) rather than drivers? In the case of bikes it is the other way around:”I hate bicyclists” instead of “I hate bikes”. It is a funny shift that happens when people are put inside such a large mechanism (car): it is like the become the machine. The same can be said for computer-based conversations vs. face-to-face: the medium defines the message.

Rusty:

Great post that shows how important it is for people to get out on bikes even if they continue to use a car as their primary transport. The world can always use a little more empathy.

Great point. Don’t know the answer, except that there’s often an “us vs. them” sort of mentality that seems to play prominently into certain things. And it seems to be magnified, in Portland at least, in the cars vs. bikes setting. And I don’t know why…

(1) Clueless idiots riding on the sidewalk despite there being a bike lane 3 feet away—this is a very popular activity

(2) Scowling bicyclists in their Lance Armstrong outfits riding as fast as they can straight towards you and only swerving at the last second (can’t count the number of times this has happened)

(3) Bicyclists suddenly blasting past you from behind with no warning on shared sidewalks/bike paths like the Hawthorne Bridge (who came up with the idiotic idea of shared paths anyway?)

(4) Bicyclists who purposefully run into pedestrians because they’re “in the way” (saw a spandex jockey on the Hawthorne Bridge do this to a girl 10 yards ahead of me, then head straight towards me—I pushed him off his bike before he could hit me; he ended up apologizing for his abominable behavior)

(5) Bicyclists who stop at red lights but pull out in the crosswalk, completely blocking it (this happens ALL the time—it actually surprises me when a bicyclist DOESN’T do this)

(6) Use the steep downslope on the northeast approach to the Hawthorne Bridge to accelerate, even though it’s a shared path, there’s a blind corner at the bottom, several signs saying to slow down, and tons of pedestrians around (it’s always an adventure to go around that corner)

I could go on and on, but suffice it say, as a pedestrian who walks pretty much everywhere, I don’t care for Portland’s bike culture one little bit. While MOST bicyclists are law-abiding and respectful, there is a large minority who are complete jerks and who have zero respect for pedestrians. As a population, bicyclists are far worse than car drivers in my years of experience as a pedestrian in Portland.

You’re right that a few bad apples give a bad name to the otherwise really awesome bunch. Like I said, I’m a cyclist too, and it bothers me to see cyclists run red lights and such because it gives us all a bad name. Since you know the rules, how about just following them, ok? You’ll be a safer cyclist and be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Signal your turns, take a lane when you have to, and don’t feel like you have to apologize for doing the right thing!

“So, I still despise bicyclists” is meant to be read in the context of the entire paragraph. A paragraph is a grouping of statements that constitute one particular idea or subject. So, there, the continued despising is clarified as only being directed towards particular individuals, as opposed to the class, and is further qualified as being transient in nature and open-ended, as opposed to the final and fixed hatred of before. I now hold out hope for growth in the particular offender.

Just like I indicated that I would hate myself if I were a driver confronted with my own current bicycling incompetence, but at the end indicate that I’m improving, and excuse current hatred towards me based on my current ineptitude.

And I think you’re reading my post to say that I’m intentionally out breaking the rules and mixing it up. If that’s in fact how you are reading it, please accept this representation that I’m not intending it to be read that way. And since I’m on a bicycle and currently have a degree of ineptitude that I’d hate for people to use to judge all bikers, I’ve opened the door, in my mind, to not just assuming that bad bicyclists are doing it on purpose.

I still don’t like dealing with bad bicyclists as a driver. That perspective drives me to want to be a better bicyclist. But my new-found insight from the bicyclist perspective has made me less disdainful of the whole biking community.

Thus ends my clarifications. Continue to misread or misunderstand if you must.