[agumonkey]

I'm a part-time cyclist (I stopped using cars 5 years ago) but after seeing a few bad ones on youtube videos I can understand the rage sometimes. They just cut anywhere without any regards for traffic.

That said a lot of people are crazy on roads, motorbikes, cars too (probably more often and more dangerously).

[ndsipa_pomu]

I take a different attitude towards seeing unruly cyclists - for me, it's about damage limitation. Assuming that 5-10% of people are idiots and behave like idiots on the road, we want to ensure that they aren't behind the driving wheel of a car as that's 2 tonnes of speeding metal that causes a lot of damage to others when driven by an idiot. We want to take those idiots and get them onto bicycles as their speed and mass will be drastically lower and also they'll be likely to reap the rewards of cycling like an idiot which usually ends up hurting the cyclist more than anyone else (even hitting a pedestrian will often result in the cyclist coming worse off).

So, every idiot cyclist you see is an idiot not in a car and thus a reason to celebrate them.

[Ringz]

You're absolutely right! However, the main difference is that cyclists pose much less danger to other road users compared to motorcycles, cars, or trucks. Of course, there are accidents where a cyclist collides with a person and causes serious injuries, but when a motorcycle, car, or truck collides with other people, the consequences are dramatically more severe. This isn't to justify cyclists doing whatever they want in traffic, but they usually only endanger themselves. If they collide with a car, the car might get a dent, which can be fixed within a few days, whereas the cyclist might struggle with injuries for weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime.

[agumonkey]

I agree too, the chance of death with bikes is ultra low. A car is a 1 ton metal moving press ...

But since I got my driver licence, I understand the anger, bikers/cyclist can come at any angle / corner and you'll feel responsible if you hit them (it made me feel weird realising this as a cyclist), they don't have to respect as much rules.

That's why my heuristic is to stay smooth and try to make the road as a cool shared space (gesture to communicate you took driver nearby into account) when you have to use it.

I still need to buy a dashcam though.. cause there's always a risk of crazy angry car driver.

[pandaman]

A 5 pound cat jumping in the middle of highway can still cause a pileup despite lacking the energy to cause any damage by itself. People don't want to run over cats and will swerve/break to evade it, losing control and hitting other cars. People don't want to run over other people (on bicycles or not) even more than they don't want to run over cats.