Great POST EDEN! you ought to send it to a newspaper!
Quote Originally Posted by Eden View Post
The really crazy thing is that it is over a little bit of slowing down.... It's very odd, but sometimes otherwise reasonable, rational people become raging, thoughtless monsters when they get behind the wheel of a car.... I think it may have been Bob Moiske (the guy who writes the legal column in Bicycling) that talked about how the car in American society is a symbol of personal freedom - you can go where ever you want, but often the reality is that you are sitting in traffic and rushing from obligation to obligation. It's not freedom at all...... When the reality doesn't fit the dream people become irrational and angry.

I do more of my riding in the city, but experience some of the same craziness in the here (with even less purpose as there is always an opportunity to pass within 30 seconds or less) - people who get soooooo mad if they can't get around you (or must *gasp*, turn their steering wheel a little) to get to the next red light quicker. Not that they don't fume and grumble if they get caught behind a bus or if someone wants to make a left hand turn, or someone wants to cross the street, but the problem is that cyclists are vulnerable and for some reason it is socially acceptable to blame everything on us and to threaten us. You probably wouldn't find anyone willing to try to side swipe a city bus (or on a country road a motorhome) to teach it a lesson... nor would it be particularly acceptable to rev ones engine at little Billy and Suzie in the crosswalk, but many motorists are perfectly fine with doing pretty dangerous and despicable things around cyclists. It's like the playground - the bigger kids think its just fine to bully the small ones and most people turn a blind eye.

I just get tired of it. Speed limits are just that, upper limits, not the slowest one is allowed to travel. Non motorized transportation has just as much right to use the roads as cars do (and yes even if you don't own a car your taxes still pay for the roads - in WA state at least, it is property tax that pays for most of the local roads, so you can be car free and you are still paying your fair share - in fact with the damage cars do to roads those who choose to not use them are subsidizing those who do...). No one has the right to endanger another person, just because their presence means you have to slow down for a little while.