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Your example was of assuming responsibility for oneself in the face of an immutable external agent - the omnipresent bike thief.
Your point above, however, is on assuming responsibility for the actions of external agents, based upon tenuous, specious and unevidenced causality.
NotThamesWater-
Is there really a difference between the two? Isn't the distinction between assuming responsibility 'in the face of an external agent' (I'm not sure the word 'immutable' really adds to the point) the same as assuming responsibility 'for the actions external agents'?
I can see that there is a discrete point about whether in practice motorists (as a group) would treat cyclists (as a group) with more consideration if cyclists stopped doing things which some motorists say they find annoying, such as RLJing. That's a question of fact, and without a control group it's ultimately just anecdotal evidence and opinions.
But as I understand it, the 'don't pander to bigots' argument is that even if the consequences of inconsiderate cycling by one person is to increase the risk of motorists driving inconsiderately towards cyclists, that's the motorists' fault and not the responsibility of the cyclist who cycles inconsiderately. Although I can see the point (the primary responsibility is that of the motorist for their own actions) I have difficulty with the concept that we're not responsible for the foreseeable consequences of our actions, even if they take effect through the agency of third parties.
Brommers
I appreciate what the current debate concerns, but was trying (without the mud-slinging and ad hominem attacks which this topic generally seems to descend into) to look at the underlying issue from a different perspective. Personally, I find it raises an interesting moral issue of the extent to which we are responsible for the effects our actions have on others, even though the agency by which those third parties are affected by our actions is itself morally reprehensible.
I suspect that nothing said on here will make anyone change their point of view, given the levels of entrenchment already apparent, but to my mind the issue is an illustration of a wider philosophical issue about moral agency.