Tolerance and Expectations On The Road

Or lack thereof.

When you roll out at sun­rise on the bike, whats your mind­set like?

You’re a cyc­list, surely someone in a vehicle will cut you off today. Run you off the road. You’re edgy already — pre­pared to defend your­self and you haven’t even left home.

Now lets con­sider motor­ists. Cyc­ling is the last thing on their mind. Get­ting the kids to school on time and pay­ing the bills are pri­or­it­ies. I won­der what frus­tra­tions they’re exper­i­en­cing at work, in life — what per­sonal battle are they try­ing to overcome?

Then lets con­coct a situ­ation where both parties come together on the road. A moment where both parties expect­a­tions aren’t met. Whats likely to hap­pen do you think?

Two words — Road Rage.

I get let­ters reg­u­larly on this topic from both cyc­lists and people who are frus­trated with cyc­lists. This one came to me yes­ter­day whilst I was read­ing The Age’s art­icle on The num­ber of peak hour cyc­lists soar. Let me share part of one from Perth.

Mark,

Is the lycra cyc­lists wear so tight that it squeezes and stim­u­lates an aggres­sion gland?

I find that the vast major­ity of cyc­lists adopt an overly aggress­ive atti­tude when on the road. I watched a cyc­list just yes­ter­day abuse some poor unsus­pect­ing lady for simply get­ting out of her car. He was rid­ing between traffic and parked cars. There was not a lot of room for him to ride between them safely. A lady sit­ting in her car opened her door to get out of her car and he sud­denly screamed at the top of his voice at her and then star­ted abus­ing her like it was her fault.

The annoy­ing part for me was I could see that he was watch­ing her. Like a tiger ready to pounce, as he was approach­ing. He could clearly see what she was about to do but delib­er­ately made out like she almost caused him an acci­dent and was scream­ing at the top of his lungs

On that topic I’ll say this. When you’re lay­ing on a hos­pital bed — it doesn’t mat­ter who’s fault it was! The dam­age is done. You are respons­ible for your own safely and actions so leave a gap.

Per­son­ally I applaud bike riders for their con­vic­tion but it’s a bit like reli­gion – nobody likes to have it pushed on them and nobody likes someone that doesn’t focus on their own wrong doings first.

I think it is a bit like the abori­gin­als they scream and fight about their rights yet they don’t fol­low society’s rules. They try to make their own rules and kick up a huge stink if any­one tries to stop them.

So as cyc­lists, are we a minor­ity with a chip on our shoulder? Are we vic­tim­ized and dis­crim­in­ated against?

We’re two sep­ar­ate groups cyc­lists and motor­ists — but only in terms of road infra­struc­ture. That’s it. In all other cases we’re the same people with the same issues and the same stresses of life.

The prob­lem in west­ern coun­tries is expect­a­tions.

Go to any Asian coun­try and you’ll bear wit­ness to what seems like traffic may­hem and chaos. Cyc­lists, trucks, cars cut­ting each other off, push­ing in to gaps that aren’t there.

I will give you 50 bucks if you spot one single case of road rage!*

Why? Because they expect the traffic to be chaotic. They accept it for what it is.

Here in Aus­tralia, our tol­er­ance levels are pretty low. We have very high expect­a­tions of each other. As a cyc­list, you expect cars will leave you a wide berth when they over­take. When they don’t — enter the road rage.

As a motor­ist, you expect cyc­lists to not ride two abreast in heavy traffic. When they don’t, you con­sider this a breach of your expect­a­tions on gen­eral road cour­tesy — enter the road rage.

I per­son­ally think the solu­tion lies less with gov­ern­ment plan­ning and infra­struc­ture but more to to with psy­cho­lo­gical edu­ca­tion of the com­munity. There needs to be more edu­ca­tion on gen­eral tol­er­ance and accept­ance between these groups.

What do you think? What is the next step for­ward to build­ing a bet­ter rela­tion­ship between motor­ists and cyclists?

*This is an empty prom­ise. I don’t have 50 bucks and if I did, it would prob­ably go on a new rear tyre for my bike.

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Photo credit TBA