Comments on: The Motorist Mentality: Get Out of My Way http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/ cargo bikes, family bikes, electric bikes and complete streets Fri, 17 May 2013 12:53:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: Andy in Germany http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-332 Andy in Germany Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:07:45 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-332 Sorry, ‘sae’ in my commen should read ‘State’.

]]> By: Andy in Germany http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-331 Andy in Germany Thu, 18 Aug 2011 04:55:06 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-331 I wonder if it’s as much a sense of entitlement as fairness: drivers feel they ‘Own’ the road, and they’ve been told for years that it’s a kind of sacred space, there to facilitate their mobility. Road too narrow? the sae widens it. Awkward town in the way? A wide bypass is provided. Need to walk too far to the shops? more parking appears.
To suddenly find themselves confronted with someone else, not in a car, using ‘their’ space is an affront. It’s offensive to the car culture because it contradicts what they believe. And worse still, this person isn’t paying $4 a gallon (or $8-9 a gallon in Germany) and still can use the road.

I think this will get worse as drivers feel their sense of entitlement threatened by higher gas prices.

]]> By: alan http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-330 alan Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:53:55 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-330 this is a late reply to this post, but I just found it today and it resonates with my bike experiences this afternoon. We had a lot of snowfall and the Commerial St. road we all bike and drive on was narrower and slippery with ice and slush; but drivers were as impatient to get “there” as ever, so for example, a SUV driver steamed past me only to suddenly stop 50 feet ahead for a parking spot at the curb. The driver hadn’t had time to shut the engine off before I wheeled by. I don’t understand that crazy need to get there now. Still again, farther up the same road, another SUV whizzed by and yes, stopped in the middle of the road not 50 feet on, flung both driver door and passenger door open to switch drivers. This meant the road was blocked entirely, so I had to work my way around the open driver door and I heard the driver say, “oh, excuse me”. I hadn’t been peddaling fast on this snowy road, but nonetheless it would have meant only a half minute delay for that driver to go my speed behind me, up to his stop. The only explanation is that the motorist sense of entitlement to the road is complete and there is no consciousness of bikes as legitimate vehicles. In other words, bikes are still toys and obstacles to the true road owners. In the future this kind of arrogance may in fact go away very quickly as the peak oil phenomenon takes all that power from them. There I said it, nice to get it off my chest to a blog that understands!

]]> By: RickS http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-329 RickS Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:24:28 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-329 Hi there. Love watching your sites. We use our car alot. The highest speed I’ve had it was 47 down a big hill. The only thing is it hates going up hills. We live in Springfield MO and it’s relatively flat, so we do ok. They really don’t pay any attention to me, I couldn’t make a get away if I had to. I have driven on 45 mph roads but only if I have to. We got ours licensed as a regular car, not a NEV so we can go anywhere.
I have a blog, there’s a picture of the car on there if you want to see it.
springfieldcityfarm.wordpress.com
Thanks again, Rick

]]> By: admin http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-328 admin Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:57:04 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-328 Rick:

I’m curious how useful you find your electric car. The newspaper says the Weego Whip is restricted to 35mph zones in New York State. Most of the places I want to go have stretches of 45mph roads. Do you drive on 45mph roads? Are you legally allowed to? Have you ever been hassled by the fuzz for doing so? I don’t think I can convince my wife to get one of these cars unless we can travel on 45mph roads.

I agree that biker populations are up. I’ve started driving slowly as a result.

]]> By: admin http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-327 admin Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:46:51 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-327 Don:

I’m a great admirer of your blog and I see you as a blogging brother :-) . I hope my post wasn’t too confrontational. I see my role in cargo bike blogdom is to get people to think anew about things they’ve taken for granted. Traffic rules are something people take for granted, but really in the big picture it’s the rules that are the aberration, not the behavior of rogue pedestrians and bicyclists. Humans have gotten along fine without traffic laws for thousands of years; just one rule, the golden rule, has worked well enough. Let’s ask ourselves why we have traffic laws and if we really need them. What would it be like without them? I was inspired to think about this question last spring when I saw following movie that shows a San Francisco street in 1906:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=NINOxRxze9k
You will see that there are pedestrians, horses, trolley cars, bicycles, and automobiles all mingling together on the street. What’s interesting is how slow everyone is going, and how everyone appears to co-exist peacefully. People stroll casually in front of other vehicles, confident that those vehicles will stop. Kids run in between vehicles. Cars and horses go the wrong way, and no one seems to mind. There are no traffic signals at the intersections, perhaps because people feel comfortable crossing all along the street. It’s like a dance. It’s beautiful chaos. And I think it’s a more humane system than we have now.

This movie led me to buy the book Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. I haven’t read it yet. But when I do you can bet that I’ll write a post about it! In the meantime, if you don’t have time to read the whole book, here’s a good summary by still another bikin’ blogger:
http://mighkwilson.com/2009/05/new-frames-for-new-ages/

To answer your second question, the electric car for sale here in Ithaca is the $19,000 Weego Whip LSV with a top speed of 25mph. The manufacturer also makes the $$33,000 Weego LiFe but for some reason that car is not yet available here.

]]> By: RickS http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-326 RickS Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:44:20 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-326 We have a Miles electric car which was made to do only 25, but the dealer has boosted up so it will go about 35. Driving this car has cured my “motorist mentality” for the most part. We use it for in town driving when we don’t want to ride the bikes. I’m having more trouble with bikes, running stop signs, not signaling, riding on the wrong side of the road. There are a lot of new riders out there that used to drive and now can’t afford too.

]]> By: Don http://bikes-as-transportation.com/the-motorist-mentality-get-out-of-my-way/#comment-325 Don Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:00:19 +0000 http://bikeforth.org/?p=1804#comment-325 I love your site and am usually in agreement with your point of view. I’ve even linked to your blog when you’ve expressed an idea better than I could. But I recently took the opposite stance of your recommendation to “break the rules” (http://mycargobike.net/2010/09/16/electric-bike-rules-of-the-road). At least for those of us with electric motors, we can start from a red light nearly as quickly as most cars – at least until they shift to second gear. I think that puts us in a different category from unpowered bikes. The price of the extra power is the responsibility to share the road and not cause extra frustration for motorists (who are, I agree, pretty stressed already). In the long run, I think that will be a safer strategy for everyone involved.

I was intrigued by the electric vehicle you mentioned. When I followed the link and checked the specs, they claimed a top speed of 65 mph. Is there a different version with a top speed of only 25 mph? I’m not sure a car with that limitation would be legal where I live (unfortunately).

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