I have been commuting to work by bike recently.
As a not-yet motorist (pending driving test number four) working in a part of Glasgow that is hellish to get to by public transport, cycling is the best and quickest option for me.
And I do enjoy the simple, alfresco, money-saving-after-two-holidays pleasure of it, especially in the sunshine.
However, I have become increasingly aware of two things:
1. motorists hate cyclists, and
2. especially cyclists like me.
Despite all efforts to promote cycling as a lean, green, healthy alternative to driving in the city, where sporadic cycle paths and ‘city bike’ provision give the illusion of a ‘cycle friendly’ culture, the old ‘four-wheels good, two-wheels bad’ mindset still prevails.
And some of us two-wheelers don’t do ourselves any favours.
I confess the following in the knowledge that some of you will want to throttle me, and the hope that it’ll encourage me to become a safer, better, less loathsome cyclist going forward (and other directions too).
I’m a renegade cyclist, the type who has only a loose grasp of the highway code, and a laissez faire attitude towards it.
I’m 90% road and cycle lane user, 10% pavement raider – why wait at busy junctions when you can raid the pavement or cross with the green man?
I’m not proud of running red lights at quiet junctions, I just sometimes feel they don’t apply to me.
Taking driving lessons in East Kilbride (aka ‘Whirly Town’) has given me roundabout psychosis. I’m always pulling out in the wrong gear (on bike and in car), too slowly, and sometimes changing lane half-way round.
Putting myself in the shoes of a motorist (which I’m hoping to become before Nicola Sturgeon/hell freezes over), I do get it.
Motorists dislike cyclists – for good reason
Cyclists are wee and wiry, slow and unpredictable. They don’t pay road tax. They needn’t qualify in any way before using the road.
When you’re driving a car, other cars, buses, and HGVs are hard enough to deal with without these all-too-squishable road pests appearing out of nowhere, randomly changing lane, and clipping your wing mirrors as they whip past you at the lights.
A quick straw poll of motorist friends and family members revealed a deep antipathy for almost every kind of cyclist, including:
• The serious cyclist – that rhapsody in Lycra who claims the middle of the road, sometimes along with a cluster of other serious cyclists, making it impossible to overtake.
• The not-serious-enough cyclist who doesn’t wear a helmet, uses the pavement 70% of the time, putting pedestrians in mortal danger, then randomly explodes on to the road like a practical joke.
• The City Bike user – see ‘not-serious-enough’ cyclist, add alcohol and multiply by ten as hen-dos and squads of drunken pals opt for two wheels instead of the taxi queue on a Saturday night. Carnage.
• The lying down cyclist – what even is that? Whose idea was it to make a bike to lie down on that no other road user can see till it’s too late, and when they do, are so distracted they cause a multi-car pile-up?
We might be a long way from an ‘all-wheels good’ road culture, but for my own part, I intend to respect (and brush up on) the highway code from now on – whatever they say about good intentions.
