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Road Rage © Demonike | Dreamstime.comNew study examines what influences drivers’ aggressive behaviour towards cyclists
A new study has been published examining what shapes car drivers’ aggression towards cyclists. Dr Laura Fruhen of the University of Western Australia and Professor Rhona Flin of the University of Aberdeen looked at how attitudes and social norms inform drivers’ behaviour.
A sample of 276 drivers completed an online questionnaire concerning their attitudes towards cyclists; their attitudes towards risky driving; their perception of social norms concerning aggressive driving towards cyclists; and the frequency with which they engaged in aggressive driving behaviour.
As you might expect, negative attitudes towards cyclists were more pronounced in non-cyclists than cyclists. Fruhen also told phys.org that the association between negative attitudes and aggressive driving behaviour was stronger in cyclists than non-cyclists.
"We found both that motorists' attitudes towards cyclists and their perceptions of others' aggressive behaviour towards cyclists influenced how often they reported engaging in aggressive behaviour towards those on bikes.”
The perception of how others behave towards cyclists also had a stronger association with aggressive driving in non-cyclists than cyclists. However, attitudes towards risk taking did not seem to affect people’s behaviour behind the wheel.
Fruhen hopes that the findings will be of use to campaigns geared towards improving the interaction between cyclists and motorists.
"In the absence of cycling infrastructure separating them, both these groups will have to work on sharing the roads. It is about being considerate from both sides.
"Drivers may see cyclists as annoying because they slow them down but they should remember that each cyclist they encounter is also just another person trying to get from A to B.
"One cyclist actually means one less car, less congestion and less pollution, which are increasingly important issues in our growing and more densely populated cities."
In 2012, social psychologist Dr Ian Walker said that the reasons behind driver aggression towards cyclists cannot be accounted for with normal psychological explanations. Walker examined a number of factors he felt could be having an influence, but concluded that even combined they could not explain all the anger that cyclists experience. "So there’s clearly one or more important variables that we’ve not identified yet.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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I'm a driving instructor, the DVSA guidelines on speed and progress are:
'You should have made safe and reasonable progress along the road, bearing in mind road, traffic and weather conditions. You need to show confidence based on sound judgement'.
'You need to show you can drive at a realistic speed appropriate to the road and traffic conditions.
I have never heard an examiner tell anyone they should have reached the speed limit. As said previously, the general outlook is that's "it's not a target", it's a limit.
I had a client fail for failing to overtake a stationary bus, but this was because he simply parked behind it next to the kerb, making no effort to see alongside the bus. If he had and said he could see a hazard that the examiner was unsighted to, he would have passed... If he hadn't gone through a red light!
Who published the study? Is it in a journal? Neither this page nor the one at phys.org seem to say.
Everyone is in such a bloody hurry all the time. Just the other day I was driving somewhere (to pick up a turbo trainer, as it happens) and was on a fairly narrow, windy, high-hedged single carriageway, single lane road. It was NSL. I came to a bend with very poor visibility - the hedges on the side of the road and the fact that it was at the peak or a small hill meant you couldn't see more than a few yards round the bend. Oh, and it had thick lines in the middle of the road, so no overtaking unless the person you're overtaking is doing under 10mph. Predictable as clockwork, as I approached the bend, a car came flying round the bend on my side of the road, overtaking two cyclists who were coming up the other side. Why? Could the other driver not wait until they had rounded the bend?
Fortunately I drive fairly defensively so was hanging back from the bend in case of such an eventuality, and so was able to brake and still have one hand available to throw up in exasperation at the other driver.
The wider picture isn't cyclist versus motorist but the inflated sense of entitlement as motorists caused by 30 years of advertising appealing to the individual self, the break down of society, blah de blah.
When you see signs like this (I snapped it at the lights yesterday) on the back of lorries it says it all. 'Pedestrians beware moving vehicle.' Really?! Sorry to run you down on the crossing but I have a sign on the back of my lorry so you were warned.
image_1170.jpg
From my experiences on bikes, in my car, in other people's cars: I think a lot of people feel 'stuck' behind anything doing less than the speed limit and it causes anxiety and frustration in their basic, chimp-like brains. I descend a long, steep hill every morning at 30-ish and never suffer any kind of agro, but on the flat section at the bottom where I drop to 25-28mph I often feel people driving up close behind to pressurise me. That's all it takes for them. Then we get to the lights and I filter past 20 cars etc. and they don't see me again.
In a 30 zone, a cyclist riding at 25mph will still 'hold up' the impatient drivers who can't rationalise the fact that they're about to get to a set of lights and have to wait anyway. A car doing 25mph will have the same effect, they will still shout "come on!, put your foot down etc..." (my dad is awful for this and it really pisses me off) Trucks driving at 65mph on the motorway send people apoplectic with rage when they feel 'stuck' behind them, despite only being 5mph off the National legal speed limit.
This for me is what needs to be educated out of society, a start would be some large billboards besides traffic lights (so they can be read safely) saying:
"The Speed Limit Is The Upper Limit, Not A Target.
Our Roads Are Not Race Circuits For Rushing As Fast As Possible To Wherever You Need To Be.
Set Off 3 Min Earlier.
Act Courtiously.
Don't be a dick."
That's the trouble though. People, these days, are taught to drive at the speed limit. I think it is possible to fail the driving test, if not driving at the limit, for failing to make progress or some other reason.
Indeed. It seem fair to require candidates to drive at nearly the speed limit, because they'll be licensed to do that unsupervised if they pass. But I think they should be told about how fast they are expected to go as part of the instructions, and the fail would be for not following exam instructions, not for bad driving.
The Institute of Advanced Motorists expects candidates to drive at the speed limit, but emphasises the importance of identifying hazards in advance and taking action to drive accordingly. This would seem far safer than the people who drive everywhere at 30mph but don't look where they are going because they are at a 'safe speed'.
Being expected to drive at the speed limit seems wrong to me, because if you're trying to drive at the limit you can't be sure you aren't going over it. The only way to not go over the limit is to stay under it.
I learnt to drive about 6-7 years ago, and the instructor was clear, you have to "make progress" if you don't or you hesitate too much you will fail the test. I guess you need an examiner on here to outline the criteria to be certain, but i have no doubt that the instructor was simply teaching what was expected.
my daughter was recently failed for not overtaking a stationary bus... she thought it wasn't safe yet the examiner felt it was...
Another difference between being stuck by a car (or a line of cars) and being stuck behind a bike is that cars are roughly the width of a lane and so obscure vision of the road in front.
When looking from behind at a cyclist who is 'in the way', one can clearly see where they want to be, and know they have the speed to get there, yet cannot because of the obstruction.
Cars don't 'get in the way' as much, because to a large extent, they block out what 'the way' is. It's rare for people to get angry a buildings for being 'in the way', and while a car is not a building, it's certainly a lot closer than a person sitting on a pile of tubes.
I think it's also just easier to get angry at something human-shaped than it is to get angry at a featureless metal box.
I'm not sure quite how these things stack up in the rationalisation of 'the angry motorist', but I think they play some role.
I think there's all sorts of 'non-conformist' stuff going on as well, but that's another story.
Cyclists do it with patience.
Cyclists do it with patience.
Ultimately, people don't think logically. When I've pointed out to non-cycling colleagues that they (in cars) spend far more time being held up by cars than by cyclists, they look at me like a dog being shown a card trick.
"Car supremacy" is not human nature and attitudes can be changed. Look at drink-driving for instance - in the 60s/70s it was something that everyone did. From the 90s onwards, it was looked upon in horror.
I'd say that part of that was down to some fairly hard-hitting government information films. I'm still of the opinion that rolling out a few of those would be worth many times the cost of "cycling infrastructure".
The motor-supremacist believes that the motor vehicle is inherently superior to the bicycle, and that drivers are entitled to dominate and control cyclists. The problem stems from primitive feelings of status and territory. In an uneducated driver the motor vehicle conveys a false sense of power and entitlement. The motorist feels that he owns the road on which the lower status, vulnerable cyclist is trespassing. This results in 'othering' of the vulnerable interloper on the bicycle who is dehumanised, empathy is withdrawn and aggression ensues. In a civilised country this attitude would have been educated out of anyone who is allowed a driving licence.
There, fixed that for you.
Space and patience is all I ask when I'm out on my bike. I believe that if I was riding a horse I would be afforded both no problem.
that would be because drivers know that a horse can really mess their car up and ruin their day if it were to rear and fall on it.
The more I cycle in busy commuter traffic, the more I realise how futile the behaviour of the drivers is. This makes me more patient when driving and more annoyed when cycling.
When you drive in commuter traffic, you basically queue at various speeds. When you cycle through it you notice that for all the pulling out, attempted over taking, accelerating, squeezing through etc etc . The cars are approximately in the same order and it has not made the slightest difference.
It would be laughable apart from some of them are putting my health at risk with their pathetic behaviour.
I've found that as I cycle more, I drive less like a prat.
I know how much fun it is in my car to fly around a corner on a country lane with the tyres on the apex, but I can't do it any longer, as my brain now shouts there could be a cyclist around the corner, can you stop?
Answer, no, result, slower driving, secondary result, will live longer to cycle more and eat more cake.
Good post
"276 people clicked some random boxes in a test we didn't even have to get out of bed for, and we called the results research"
Christs sake.
even 'getting stuck' behind a cyclist helps as it smooths traffic flow as it slows the rate of cars joining the next queue. Most drivers/people are just too think to figure this out.
So many drivers simply don't realise that they are merely delaying the inevitable arrival behind the car in front. I see it all the time.
I have a theory that, for many drivers, seeing the car in front 'getting away' while they are held up triggers some kind of emotional response. Yet if the 15 seconds is spent behind a tractor or bin lorry it's less of an issue than if it's a bicycle (unless the cyclist has the word 'POLICE' on their back in large letters).
But they're not thick, just following a kind of instinct / learnt behaviour. Since they never re-evaluate their own driving they never question these assumptions.
The aggression seems to be linked with the misconception that "roads are for cars" (and other motorised vehicles) and cyclists do not belong there.
Saw this on twitter earlier:
https://twitter.com/TtlWomenCycling/status/638073218058682369
You are bang on. Little tale. When I was younger we would travel over to Dumfries and Galloway area for hols (from Newcastle). Travelling along the A69 (notorious for getting stuck behind lorrys, tractors etc) you would get people over taking extremely dangerously just to get ahead. My grandad would always say "we'll see him at the next roundabout" and sure enough, every time, that dickhead would be 2 or 3 cars in front. They gained no time, and put themselves and their passengers at huge risk.
I find that when I commute to work on the bike. I will get cars screaming past me, but when I get to the next set of lights there they are, sat in a queue of cars and I filter past.
I see the same when I'm on my motorbike too. I'm really careful not to speed (not keen to have to go through the driver awareness course again thank you) and find other drivers regularly tailgate me, wanting past. As my commute takes me along some dual carriageways these tailgaters will barrel past at the first opportunity. Like as not I'll then ride past several of them when I turn off the main road. There are a couple of drivers I see regularly but they don't seem to get the message.
sorry - read this twice - what does it say?
it says bears shit in the woods and the pope wears a funny hat.
No, cyclists don't slow motorists down. The net effect is that cyclists speed up motorists.
1) Every time I turn right on my bike, cars can still squeeze past whilst I wait to turn. If I was in a car they'd be forced to wait
2) Whenever I approach a narrow section of road with parked cars on one side, I can squeeze through and allow traffic to continue the other way. If I was in a car they'd have to wait.
3) At traffic lights I take up no space. If I was a car the other cars behind would be further back.
4) When there's cycle lanes next to the road, I use them thus giving other cars less queuing. If I was driving this couldn't happen.
5) I often take the back street shortcuts with minimal traffic, cut through parks etc. If I was driving I'd simply elongate the queues.
But some people are dumb. If they don't see an immediate benefit, they don't think it exists. I hear the same bullshit "I was stuck behind a cyclist for 15 seconds only 2 months ago" and they don't consider any of the above.
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