I am not just a bike, I'm a vehicle

[colorisnt]

I saw this on a decal at the local used bike store where I got Truman, my new commuting road bike. It often occurs to me to ask why people driving cars don't think of me as a vehicle.

I am a researcher and have my hypotheses, but why do YOU think drivers treat us as some sort of PITA rather than another vehicle going somewhere?

Here, in Columbia, MO, I don't have an issue. The drivers HAVE to behave with cyclists. They will get pulled over if they don't. You have to yeild to bikes and also treat them as vehicles at the same time.

It's a delicate balance. But the general consensus is that bikes DO belong. We have a ton of trails and cycling lanes to reinforce the point. I don't get honked at here or chased. But back home, who knows! People in my small town didn't much like cyclists. They didn't know what to think of them more than anything. In Bloomington, IN, they would honk, yell, and be rude because clearly any rider on a bike is a frat or sorority person training for their big race! There is an elitist tinge to cycling and people dislike it.

I would argue the culture of the place matters. But I am curious to know what you all think?

[PamNY]

There are lots of factors we could discuss, but IMO the main reason is that drivers don't want to slow down, which they occasionally have to do for bikes.

Cyclists don't like to slow down either -- I regularly get snarky comments from cyclists when I stop to let pedestrians cross on the bike path (required by state law at crosswalks).

It's mostly just human nature.

[OakLeaf]

I think it's just our vulnerability that brings out the cruelty in people. They have to slow down for farm machinery and garbage trucks, too, but they don't try to run them off the road.

[zoom-zoom]

We don't have engines or license plates. I think Oak is on it with the vulnerability thing, too. I drive a small car and have had larger vehicles hog the road, ride my @ss, and cut me off more than I see when I'm a passenger in a larger vehicle and paying attention to the politics of the road.

[marni]

because bikes and bike riding are not thought of as an adult recreational or non professional skills unless you are a pro and getting paid to do it. Bikes and the children who ride them belong up on the sidewalk, and most drivers consider anything or anyone on a bike or resembling a bike as childish.

Around here in Texas, it is also probably that most drivers don't remember the vehicle code. Even when I quote to section and lines referring to the rights of bicycles and bicyclers in the vehicle code to them they tell me I am wrong and that I should get out of the road.

I've had "ranchers" pull over and curse me out for being in the road when they had to slow down and "endanger their stock in the stock trailer" in order to get past me. If they had stock in their trailer, why were they driving so fast?

Never mind.

marni

[zoom-zoom]

Around here in Texas, it is also probably that most drivers don't remember the vehicle code. Even when I quote to section and lines referring to the rights of bicycles and bicyclers in the vehicle code to them they tell me I am wrong and that I should get out of the road.

I have really considered getting this jersey. With my luck I wouldn't be wearing it during an altercation. Perhaps I should consier a forearm tattoo.