By Mary McEaneany
Reprinted with the permission of CycleSouth and On The Road
Publishing (May/June 1993)
The Gulf War may be well over, but there’s another war going on according to Randy Parker. I have to agree with him on this one. Signs of this war can be found in just about any relatively large city in the Southeast and with few exceptions, elsewhere throughout the country. This war is found wherever there are cars and cyclists battling it out on the same narrow roadways. It’s a war, which is being won, not surprisingly, by the cars. The power of these vehicles comes not only from their size and momentum but by the population as well.
The results of this war can be and will most likely become horrific. Too many cyclists are being injured in accidents, many of which could have been avoided had one or both of the actors used a little common sense, and perhaps, followed the law. Some of those injured have been lucky, others not so lucky.
Might does not make right.
However, cyclists would do well to remember that when the showdown between car and bicycle does occur, no bicycle will outmatch a car. Even a Hyundai would win this one.
The greater might of the car does not mean that cyclists should relinquish their rights to the road. We are legal vehicles, hence we have equal rights to all public roadways. The problem lays in the fact that many of us who demand our right to the road refuse to acknowledge the restrictions, which are part and parcel of those rights.
There can be no denying that there are plenty of hostile motorists out there who enjoy nothing more than harassing cyclists. Hostile harassment entails not only verbal abuse but such actions as purposely cutting a cyclist off, coming too close, and throwing objects from the car. Too often many of these encounters are intentionally hostile.
Others are just seemingly so.
Cyclists should always bear in mind that many of the negative encounters we have with motor vehicles are due not to hostility but ignorance. Most driver training includes little or no instruction on how to handle a bicycle. Most non-cyclists cannot perceive of a bicycle moving at speeds of 20, 30, 40, or more miles per hour. When these people think about bicycling, they think about themselves cruising their own neighborhoods at a pace of about five miles an hour. Many are not even aware that a bicycle has a legal right to the road.
Another thing about motorists-for many of them we are invisible. Believe it or not, most do not intend to endanger your life when cutting you off or turning right in front of you. They just don’t see you. This isn’t surprising because to them the only vehicles on the road are cars. They don’t expect the smaller vehicles to be on the road because they don’t know we are legally considered vehicles.
This is not to say that we should just forgive and forget. It means that we need to understand them and react accordingly. It does not mean we should bite their heads off as if they were all out to get us. This kind of behavior only serves to aggravate motorists and makes cyclists look both crazed and obnoxious. When the average person encounters hostile riders, they too will become hostile.
Point in fact: Hostility feeds on itself.
As for my fellow cyclists, I have found that those of you who scream the loudest about your rights to the road are also those who most often refuse to acknowledge that there are restrictions, which accompany those rights.
The main refrain I hear from both cyclists and motorists seems to be that no one is going to do anything about the problem until the other side does something first. So nothing gets done. If we as cyclists do not take the first step in changing attitudes, we are not only going to run greater risks to our bodies and our lives, we are going to lose our rights to the road.
Neither fair nor just? Of course not. Unfortunately, however, that’s not what’s important here. What’s more important is who wins this war. As things stand, it won’t be us. We are the only ones who have anything to lose.
It is time we stopped alienating motorists and began educating them.