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Comment by ndsipa_pomu | Hacker News Reader

As a cyclist, I don't have an issue sharing space with other traffic, but I do have an issue with the hyper-aggressive drivers that seek to scare and/or injure cyclists by not giving them enough space when overtaking. There's also the abusive drivers that shout at you and beep their horn at you if they disagree with any choices that you've made such as which road to use.

Drivers and riders are hardly comparable in terms of dangerous behaviour and that's without even taking into account any consideration of pollution and environmental destruction (e.g. car parks, lithium mining etc.)

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> There's also the abusive drivers that shout at you and beep their horn at you

Yep, happened to me.

Also there is a 'compulsive overtaking syndrome' where a driver feels they must overtake the bicycle even if you are exceeding the speed limit on your bicycle. Even if there is not enough space.

The technical term for that is MGIF (Must Get In Front). It's especially bizarre when there's queueing traffic just ahead, so they overtake and then you almost immediately filter past them. It seems as though they're not able to look ahead and anticipate their own progress.

My absolute favorite (deep-fried sarcasm here) part of this is when they overtake and then slow down below your speed - regardless if you're driving or cycling.

As if it was somehow tiring for the car or something.

The absolute worst are drivers who do the MGIF thing then immediately do a left turn right in front of you!

Edit: Slight correction - the absolute worst were the kids who thought it would be amusing to throw a brick at me while I was commuting by bike through the outskirts of Edinburgh. Fortunately their aim wasn't very good.

As a cyclist in a town with a lot of cyclist, I see less aggressive behaviour in my town, than in the countryside where people are not used to cyclist. I was discussing with a fellow cyclist and we agreed that some countryside places were particularly full of aggressive drivers.

The more cyclist you have, the less aggressive it becomes

That matches with my experience too.

One particular problem with city motorists is mobile phone use, especially in traffic queues. People like to think that they can context switch between using their phone and paying attention to their vehicle surroundings, but I would disagree.

I spent a few months down in the country last year, and definitely encountered this. Drivers don't know how to react, so you tend to get reactions from given massive amounts of space (not that I'm complaining) to passing at breakneck speed.

Though there's other sides to it too, like the local youths who apparently find cycling inherently amusing and worth an attempt to intentionally run me off the road. It happens in other places too, there was an actual conviction last year because someone got recorded doing it at motorway speeds. I also learned last year that "rolling coal" or intentionally annoying cyclists with truck emissions is something in some parts of the US too.

On the plus side though, you can leave a bike just leaning against the outside of the store safely though, while an inadequate lock is grounds for getting your bike stolen in the city. I guess it's due to the lack of anonymity and places to sell stolen bikes out there. You will need to though, as there's nothing to lock the bike to outside the country store.

> Though there's other sides to it too, like the local youths who apparently find cycling inherently amusing and worth an attempt to intentionally run me off the road.

I second that, this winter I was cycling in the night, and local youths found it would be funny to scare me while they overtake me. One night I had 3 cars who did this "joke".

> As a cyclist, I don't have an issue sharing space with other traffic, but I do have an issue with the hyper-aggressive drivers that seek to scare and/or injure cyclists by not giving them enough space when overtaking

I haven't generally seen that in Germany, although I have only lived in cities with a generally good biking infrastructure. The only time when I get uncomfortably close is either due to fundamental infrastructure constrains (intersection squeezed in between buildings) or if some stupid delivery van parks on the bicycle path so I have to overtake it by crossing into the road. I wonder if more cyclist would normalise the situation so that abusive drivers calm down.

I'm in the UK and it's very noticeable how much nicer the German drivers have been when I've gone there (just Munich and Berlin). Most surprising was when drivers were wanting to pull out of a side street, but waited patiently for cyclists to go past without any hint of impatience or anger.

In the UK we have 'Vehicle Excise Duty' which used to be known as 'Road Tax'. There is a commonly held misconception that this 'tax' goes directly to the provision and maintenance of the road network (it doesn't, it's just another tax), hence the entitlement of some car drivers when confronted with, what they perceive as, a cycling free-loader.

For extra irony, sometimes those drivers are in EVs that also pay no emissions tax.

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