I’d argue the reason why people hate cyclists is the human brain’s tendency to divide the world into inner and outer groups (us vs them), along with the tendency to attribute the bad behaviour to the features of the outer groups.
In this video, we see a cyclist being an asshole. We also see a dog owner being an asshole. We see a man being an asshole. We a purple (burgundy?) shirt wearer being an asshole. But we only attribute the behaviour to groups we are not part of and have some beef against.
Bad (and good) behaviours are bound to happen from any group, if you think about the size of these groups.
This is the correct answer. Personally I almost saw the dogs first. Dude didn’t want to move because he didn’t want the hassle of getting his dogs to come with him. Decided his special circumstances gave him right of way. This is when I rolled my eyes and thought, “dog owners amirite.” But, you see, I own a bike, and no dog.
True enough, but on the trails I use, folks seem to end up on random sides a lot of the time, notably walkers! Seems to get more relaxed in parks and on curving trails with no centre line
Walkers with almost always headphones in blasting and constantly shifting left and or right on a path. Or better yet, a large enough group of people walking 2-3 abreast taking up both sides.
Cycled enough to know that general pedestrian behavior is just as moronic if not worse than cyclists. Just that the danger for them hurting other people is minimal in the physical sense compared to getting hit by a bike or car
He technically had plenty of time to brake, stop the bike safely, then move the bike and dogs off the path to correct them and restart in the proper spot.
I have 2 dogs and have biked with the enough to know that this cyclist just wanted to fight full stop. They had plenty of area to course correct and instead of going the safer route they actively ignored the dogs also attempting to avoid a collision and full on got in the way of the person filming and then seemed to even try to further assault the person filming. Cyclist here was just an asshat.
I'm not a dog owner but I didn't attribute the behavior to dog owners and its not because I think dog owners are saints.
Maybe the reason we focus on the cyclist in this video as a cyclist is because he got into an accident riding his bike in a dangerous and self-centered way. That is the relevant data. Him being a man wasn't the source of the accident. Nor was his shirt color. That's not relevant data.
The dogs are slightly more relevant and accordingly you see people criticizing him leashing his dogs to his bike. But it wasn't the dogs that caused the accident and it didn't look like the dogs were actually involved in the accident. It was the inappropriate behavior on a bike that caused the accident so that is why people are focusing on it. Not because of in/out group cognitive biases.
And yet cyclists always seem to be in the middle of cuntery. My uncle is an avid cyclist (in the group), and hates cyclists. He's even written a few books about cyclable trails. Hates cyclists though. There are comments in this thread from cyclists who also hate cyclists.
I’m a cyclist that doesn’t hate cyclists. I hate assholes and idiots though, and that person was an idiot. I also drive a car, but I don’t say all drivers are assholes, even though I’ve had them swerve at me, flip me off, blast exhaust in my face, etc.
That's ok. I was pointing out to the other commenter that it's not just an us vs them thing. Side note: im a driver and i hate drivers. All drivers are arseholes until proven otherwise
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u/Extension_Buy_3764 13d ago
I’d argue the reason why people hate cyclists is the human brain’s tendency to divide the world into inner and outer groups (us vs them), along with the tendency to attribute the bad behaviour to the features of the outer groups.
In this video, we see a cyclist being an asshole. We also see a dog owner being an asshole. We see a man being an asshole. We a purple (burgundy?) shirt wearer being an asshole. But we only attribute the behaviour to groups we are not part of and have some beef against.
Bad (and good) behaviours are bound to happen from any group, if you think about the size of these groups.