Um .... er .... so they're caring, sensitive types afterall? Our P.O.V tends more towards that of Louise the Port Talbot cyclist.
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Why drivers really hate cyclists
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=16993183&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=why-drivers-really-hate-cyclists-name_page.html
MOTORISTS hate cyclists because they're secretly scared of hurting them on the roads, according to new research.
Cardiff University academic Ben Fincham has formulated the theory to explain why people on bikes frequently attract rage from other road users.
Mr Fincham, from the university's school of social sciences, reached his finding after studying attitudes towards bike messengers. He says anger towards cyclists derives from a "hierarchy of vulnerability", meaning that while a bike user might make a mistake, it will be a driver that injures them.
He said, "There's definitely an idea that people should all be behaving in the same way because they're all road users, but there's a hierarchy of vulnerability and impact. If a pedestrian walks across the road, it won't be them that causes the damage, but the car that is swerving to avoid them.
"The difference with cyclists is that they operate in the same areas as cars, but they're as vulnerable as pedestrians."
And Mr Fincham, whose interest in the subject was aroused when during a spell as a bike messenger in Cardiff prior to his academic career, said that driving could have a powerful effect on attitudes towards cyclists.
"Cycling is seen as something that's done by people who are slightly unhinged, or willfully negligent anyway. The idea that they probably break the rules of the road is going to upset people and if that is at the forefront of your mind, it will influence your experience of them."
There tend to be clear lines of demarcation between where car users and non-car users are able to go, but cyclists operate between those lines.
"Some cyclists inevitably do things that are not anticipated, like running red lights, and that often upsets motorists. I've heard of people being abused, both physically and verbally, by car users. That level of malice and ire is cranked by the fact that you are doing something that you might be allowed to, but people feel like you shouldn't be doing.
"What confuses a lot of bikers is that if you cut someone up, you will probably have abuse and threats hurled at you, but if a driver actually injured you, they'd be distraught."
But keen cyclist Louise Jones, from Port Talbot, said she found Mr Fincham's theory "a very strange sort of argument". Asked if she had experienced hostility from motorists, she said, "It tends to be just from youths in souped-up cars who think it's only them who are allowed on the roads. You always get the odd idiot who wants to do something silly, but in the main, motorists tolerate the cyclists, and vice versa, as long as they abide by the rules of the road."