Bike snobbery and road rage

The UK, like much of the English speaking world, is full of self-entitled, selfish arses. I blame Thatcher or something.

By 'nodder', the general expression refers to Vanneau's description:

I always saw the focus on what they wear (which invariably mentions fluoro) as pointing up the fundamental irony of buying 'safety gear' and then riding like a sociopath

I don't think people here would describe the casually dressed utility cyclists of Denmark and the Netherlands as 'nodders', most I'm sure have decent road sense and probably have more riding experience than most of us.

Although plenty use it to describe people they believe are inferior to them, and that is dickish.

As a side note, people seem pretty chill on the roads here in Finland, however motorists rarely stop to let people cross pedestrian crossings, and taxi drivers are as big a bunch of cunts as in any country.

It really struck me how many of the very many people riding bikes in Copenhagen are riding cheap, crappy, Chinese style bikes , as well as the ubiquitous sit up and beg bikes. And or course, most people ride in their normal clothes, don't go very fast, and people weaving around is just one of those things you accept.

Of course, some people there ride racing bikes in full Lycra - I saw a massive club run passing through Roakilde on Sunday, about 50-60 riders all out on a lovely summers ride at a reasonable clip.

But a lot of people don't. Most people cycling in Copenhagen would get called nodders in here and people would complain about them being in the way and not being hyper proficient cyclists.

You always need to know the parameters of their trips. Generally, the main reason why you see people cycling like that in Copenhagen and the Netherlands is because they don't have to go very far. They cycle trips which in London would be walked. The need to travel in general has gone up a lot in these countries (i.e., greater average mileage per trip), but in some urban centres there still exists a large base of pretty short trips.

There's also the issue that other cities aren't nearly as busy as London. Not only do people typically have to travel further, but they can also expect a far greater number of (personal) interactions and need for conflict resolution, which slows them down and makes the trip more mentally taxing.

In the case of "road rage" the individuals right to get from A to B in the most convenient / quickest way. This "right" we feel seems to surpass all other considerations.

Britain has a very strange inheritance of land use, in which the main factor is still the industrial revolution, two hundred years on. The population got shuffled around like never before, converging on the cities and causing some to grow explosively. Most of Britain's small market towns never recovered.

Transportation is also closely linked to land dominance. There's a huge drop between inner-city land values and land values elsewhere, a much greater drop than in most European countries. As a result, since economic power depends first and foremost on land, whether that land is then used for resource exploitation or rental income or not, the UK is one of the most unjust countries on the planet.

One of the results is a very strange sense of dislocation, of unenviable choices to make as to where to live and where to go. Many people have a desperate sense of wanting to participate in the imagined prosperity that greater access to land is seen to bring, even if they delude themselves while they're just customers adding further to the entrenched unequal land power bases.

That's obviously not a full explanation, but it is a significant factor that you don't find as strongly in Continental countries.

Responsibility for (often violent) bad behaviour is ascribed to the victim. I find it beyond depressing.

The analysis is spot on, unfortunately. The roleplaying involved in these often extremely casual (owing to the brevity of the encounter) abusive relationships is quite profound and tangled up with social stereotypes. Gender often comes into play, and racism is there, too, although not necessarily in the ways you'd expect, i.e. not so much between users of different modes but with things like excessive stop rates of black males in expensive-looking cars by the police.

Owing to the great number of such fleeting traffic encounters, there's a collective abuse whose stories are shared, perhaps at the pub, perhaps on Internet forums. People get cowed by social pressure more than anything, by what's 'normal'. If you demonstrate, in your riding style and in your attitude, that cycling is perfectly normal, you'll be abused a lot less. It's very easy to unwittingly assume a victim's role when riding a bike, not that that excuses abuse in any way, of course. Social anxiety in traffic is quite a fascinating subject.

We have a culture in which speeding cameras are seen as an unfair tax on motorists. In Copenhagen, I was jaywalking across empty streets while people were waiting for the green man and giving me odd looks. In my mind, the street was empty, so why not cross? But for them, you obey the signals, and you don't feel hard done by for doing so. I think our existing infrastructure design reflects our predispositions, and that better, more interventionist design can help reign them in - but our predisposition in the UK is still to push push push, and there's a limit to how far good design can contain that.

You appear to misunderstand that you were breaking the law there, whereas if you're here you don't if you 'jaywalk' (which, by the way, does not just mean 'crossing the street on foot wherever you like', as it's more complicated than that, and we should avoid using the term in a UK context). It's got nothing to do with infrastructure design, just with legislation. Obviously, you have the usual attitudes there like 'don't set a bad example for the children', 'it's not safe', etc., too, but you can get fined for walking across the street on a red man over there. It's one of the most significant traffic freedoms we have in the UK and we ought to celebrate it.

You're obviously right that design doesn't do everything people always hope it will, and that at the same time good design is still important.

Try cycling/driving in Singapore (or Malaysia) where the Kiasu attitude (grasping, selfish attitude) makes driving, cycling or being a ped outrageously dangerous... It's the most extraordinary way of life but it only really happens when people are 1) driving, 2) getting in/out of lifts and 3) getting on/off tubes or busses.

Honestly it makes cycling in London seem like bliss - but then again I have never tried commuting.

here's my 2 cents

While arbitrary culture is found amongst adults everywhere on
earth, it is most easily viewed amongst children. Culture creates
ideas of style compulsion, body image compulsion and action
compulsion. To prefer pink over blue is a personal preference.
To wear blue because you fear wearing pink is the destruction
brought by arbitrary culture.
Cultures limit the choices available to people by creating
arbitrary rules for your life, and enforcing them with peer
pressure. Crushing the spirit of people allows culture to gain
their obedience.
When people fear standing tall because they believe they are
not sufficiently attractive, wealthy or educated, culture is
crushing their spirit by teaching them that they have limited
worth. People who do not know their own value are easy to
control.
The pressures applied amongst children are a paradigm of the
culture of more powerful evil. Those children who are the most
adept at understanding how to conform to cultural norms and
apply the strictest enforcement against everyone else are the
ones who gain social power. This is a type and a shadow of the
culture of nations and kings.
A model citizen of culture is one who patterns themselves
precisely to the ideals of culture. In premise, this means style,
speech, education and economics. In reality, this means
obedience. Culture teaches people to idolize the perfect citizen.
It does so because it desires your obedience as well.
These people are rewarded by society for being easily molded
by culture. The powers of authority and compulsion in all walks
of life will always reward the model citizens with tokens of
nobility and will always punish those who fail to meet the
standards of servitude with humiliation and ridicule. Such is the
creation of a culture. Such is the making of slaves.
This breakdown of the human spirit eventually forces
everyone to conform. Very few will even think of fighting the
power structure, almost everyone accepts authority.

I don't think people here would describe the casually dressed utility cyclists of Denmark and the Netherlands as 'nodders', most I'm sure have decent road sense and probably have more riding experience than most of us.

Actually, their riding experience is worse than our.

here's my 2 cents

While arbitrary culture is found amongst adults everywhere on
earth, it is most easily viewed amongst children.... ...Such is the making of slaves.
This breakdown of the human spirit eventually forces
everyone to conform. Very few will even think of fighting the
power structure, almost everyone accepts authority.

You been reading Enders Game?!?

nerged by jeez for an earlier post.

fuck off cockbreath, go play in the traffic.

Repped, because Jeez...

thanks mom!

What a belm.

Jeez can't post but can rep?

Doesn't matter either way, as the new system will be live soon, and rep won't be passed over.

He can post, he's just choosing not to because he's in the huff.

What will happened next after he puff?

Maybe he'll go on a mad rampage like michael douglass in that film that time D:

liberace?

great film.

Is that the one with the robot piano?

You're getting the hang of this now, Olly...