Dealing with the "i hate cyclist" rant from relatives at Christmas

David9694 wrote:

 

The hierarchy/ inferiority stuff I'm not so sure about, enjoyable though it is to think that when there's a lane out that the 69 reg Vogue is as stuck as I am in my little 57 reg.  I think in motoring there's a "follow the car in front"/ we're all in it together, sort of spirit reinforced in towns by specific traffic schemes - in short, the car and its progress is "normal".  Bikes disrupt that "order" in the ways people have described - physically and psychologically. 

I disagree entirely (but respectfully). It's got even worse with our new throw away society, there's very few bangers on the road anymore, fewer teenagers or working class people trying to make a 20 year old Ford survive. They are all in a living room with digital media, protected in a bubble of parking sensors and safety. They don't follow the car in front, they look for the first opportunity to pass it, find a quicker lane at the lights, bully their way into a gap, pass a car in the opposite direction at 60mph each by milimetres. Must get in front is determined by their car, their right, their self importance. Everything is an inconvenience to them but cyclists are bottom of the pecking order and there to be bullied and attacked. I just wish a driver would treat a car with even half the caution they do a horse!

Stakkato's Daughter

Welcome to the dark underbelly of cycling society, and well done for standing up to your ex-inlaws. But don't let something like that consume you.

alansmurphy wrote:

David9694 wrote:

The hierarchy/ inferiority stuff I'm not so sure about, enjoyable though it is to think that when there's a lane out that the 69 reg Vogue is as stuck as I am in my little 57 reg.  I think in motoring there's a "follow the car in front"/ we're all in it together, sort of spirit reinforced in towns by specific traffic schemes - in short, the car and its progress is "normal".  Bikes disrupt that "order" in the ways people have described - physically and psychologically. 

I disagree entirely (but respectfully). It's got even worse with our new throw away society, there's very few bangers on the road anymore, fewer teenagers or working class people trying to make a 20 year old Ford survive. They are all in a living room with digital media, protected in a bubble of parking sensors and safety. They don't follow the car in front, they look for the first opportunity to pass it, find a quicker lane at the lights, bully their way into a gap, pass a car in the opposite direction at 60mph each by milimetres. Must get in front is determined by their car, their right, their self importance. Everything is an inconvenience to them but cyclists are bottom of the pecking order and there to be bullied and attacked. I just wish a driver would treat a car with even half the caution they do a horse!

I suspect that they only really treat a horse with caution because they know that a horse is, like,  THIS big! and they know that a horse can do a lot of damage to their Precious.

If cyclists were seen as likely to panic and damage cars then they'd be treated with more caution too.

brooksby wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

David9694 wrote:

The hierarchy/ inferiority stuff I'm not so sure about, enjoyable though it is to think that when there's a lane out that the 69 reg Vogue is as stuck as I am in my little 57 reg.  I think in motoring there's a "follow the car in front"/ we're all in it together, sort of spirit reinforced in towns by specific traffic schemes - in short, the car and its progress is "normal".  Bikes disrupt that "order" in the ways people have described - physically and psychologically. 

I disagree entirely (but respectfully). It's got even worse with our new throw away society, there's very few bangers on the road anymore, fewer teenagers or working class people trying to make a 20 year old Ford survive. They are all in a living room with digital media, protected in a bubble of parking sensors and safety. They don't follow the car in front, they look for the first opportunity to pass it, find a quicker lane at the lights, bully their way into a gap, pass a car in the opposite direction at 60mph each by milimetres. Must get in front is determined by their car, their right, their self importance. Everything is an inconvenience to them but cyclists are bottom of the pecking order and there to be bullied and attacked. I just wish a driver would treat a car with even half the caution they do a horse!

I suspect that they only really treat a horse with caution because they know that a horse is, like,  THIS big! and they know that a horse can do a lot of damage to their Precious.

If cyclists were seen as likely to panic and damage cars then they'd be treated with more caution too.

I always wonder where Mr pony Hit and Run in the New Forest spirits away his boshed-in car....

I wonder which motorist is more dangerous to cyclists - the good, the bad or the indifferent? I agree about Mr Overtaky bargey bargey, must save those precious seconds, each reclaimed second means another £10 can be raised for the orphanage, but I credit them (unpleasant though they are) at least with exercising some judgment and interest in their driving  - NMotD 350 is exactly the sort of switched-off idiot I mean. 

muscle and wealth do win arguments and situations - the #metoo stuff now back in the news is an example of how attitudes can change, although I doubt every casting couch has yet been taken to the tip or dumped in a lay-by.
 

Another example I always cite is that of my 89 year old mother, in her electric wheelchair, one foot amputated. Cars slow down for her as she ambles about the edge of the town centre on some tricky junctions - for some it's out of genuine grace and respect - for others, this is simply not an argument they're going to win in the media/ social media.  She needs a Go Pro on the headrest!

 

 

 

mikepridmorewood wrote:

That's a rhoritcal answer btw......

a what? 

Pilot Pete wrote:

mikepridmorewood wrote:

That's a rhoritcal answer btw......

a what? 

Is that a rhetorical question?

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

Hence all the, 'if you worked harder you could afford a car', 'free loader', 'tax dodger', entitlement shit that gets spouted... you the driver are projecting these negatives attributes on to cyclists inorder to justify your own complicitness to the 'norm' that you secretly hate."

Or something like that anyway. 

Yep. I alluded to this in another post about drivers and "essential" journeys. Drivers have been sold (for years/decades) a freedom machine and a status symbol. I'd guess at the vast majority of drivers on the roads are sitting there quietly fuming at everyone and everything else. Look at all these other idiots on the road. Why is that person driving so slowly, GET OUT OF MY WAY! Why couldn't you walk to the park you imbecile, you're clogging up the whole road.

You get the same if they're pulled over for speeding. I was "only" a few mph over. Go and catch some proper criminals. I'm too important for minor things like speed limits to apply, they're for OTHER people. Same with Road Closed signs. How many thousands of times have you seen someone ignore one and then 2 mins later come speeding back down the road, furious that THEIR important journey has been interrupted.

Everyone considers their own journey to be essential so if the other morons could just fuck off...

Sitting in a traffic jam in your supercar, you're suddenly no better than these other people in inferior cars who are also stuck. Your Go Anywhere Off Roader can suddenly not go anywhere. But wait - what's this? A CYCLIST? Going past me in my supercar?!

Rather than considering if I should switch modes of transport, I'm going to vent all my rage at this poor person who has dared to question the hierarchy of the roads (where I am at the top and fuck everyone else).

As for how to deal with it, use the phrase "I know, it's GREAT isn't it?!"

You don't pay any road tax!  I know, it's GREAT isn't it?!
You don't have to pay for parking!  I know, it's GREAT isn't it?!
They soon get bored of dealing with positivity, they want to get a rise out of you but if you respond with quiet positivity, they don't know how to deal with it.

shufflingb wrote:

Avoid insulting the person (or their beliefs), getting angry or bombarding them with facts, (see https://heleo.com/facts-dont-change-peoples-minds-heres/16242/) Doing any of these is likely to doom the cause no matter how tempting it can sometimes be.

 

Instead, try using reframing https://www.connerpartners.com/frameworks-and-processes/the-basics-of-reframing and coaching/questioning techniques to help the individual discover the facts from the person they trust the most, i.e. themselves.

 

It can be hard work and the more established the position is the harder it will be to shift. However, like everything, practice helps; so if up to it, the Mail Online's comments section can be a good practice resource    

 

Good luck.

And you reckon those techniques would work with someone not even willing to engage beyond ‘hate’, ‘road tax’, ‘always jump red lights’ etc?

Even the link uses ‘changing the way employees engage with customers’ as it’s example. I use a similar sort of technique at work when training professionals - instead of assessing and debriefing by way of a list of things they didn’t do right with immediate training input of how they should have done it, I and all trainers use a facilitative technique which is where you facilitate a discussion between the professionals under training and get them to identify what they did well (and more important,y why it was good) and what they would do differently, again the ‘why’ being the key. Most professionals know what they did wrong, and most know what they should have done. We need to get down to why they did it wrong and then they can learn for next time. Only if they don’t know what they did wrong or how to put it right, would I as a trainer offer training input.

Now that only works when the people I am facilitating (as in leading the discussion by way of just asking questions) buy into the technique - if they don’t then it will fall flat on its arse and the only way then is to tell. 

I suspect the technique you have offered regarding changing the minds of anti-cyclists would be similar - the theory is great, but these people really don’t want to engage - they just want to tell you  about their hatred for this out group and give their (uneducated) and very predictable reasoning.

PP

Pilot Pete wrote:

I suspect the technique you have offered regarding changing the minds of anti-cyclists would be similar - the theory is great, but these people really don’t want to engage - they just want to tell you  about their hatred for this out group and give their (uneducated) and very predictable reasoning.

PP

For the seemingly bloody-minded searching for common ground and going from there has the greatest chance of success  https://www.fastcompany.com/90206297/the-emotionally-intelligent-way-to-resolve-disagreements-faster

Persuasion works (how else does a peaceful society move forward?) but it is definitely far more of a challenge when firing the individual is not an option

shufflingb wrote:

Persuasion works (how else does a peaceful society move forward?) but it is definitely far more of a challenge when firing the individual is not an option

Society usually moves forward with the use of some measure of force, and at least an implied threat of violence. That's how change historically has happened - I can't think of a case where persuasion entirely on it's own did much to 'move society forward'. People tend to respect those who pose a threat to them.

It doesn't necessarily mean terrorism, in fact 'terrorism' seems to be a label for violence that doesn't work. Violence very often doesn't end up being made manifest, because people calculate that it's not worth the danger or trouble and so concede before it gets to that point, hence the 'peacefulness' is maintained. But if the threat of violence wasn't there, the persuasion probably wouldn't work.
Almost every change in society, from the enclosures to the end of monarchy to the end of slavery involved violence.

At the very least persuasion only works when it's accompanied by real changes in material conditions. And all physical action is 'violence' in some sense, at least it's part of a continuum with it, with a fuzzy boundary line.

Being able to fire someone ultimately depends on violence, to maintain power relationships that allow one person to fire another. A driver obliging me to wait by the kerb to cross while they drive past is implicitly relying on the threat of violence to ensure I know my place.

I'm massively overthinking this. I just get irritated with the implication that all disagreements can be resolved by everyone discussing things 'reasonably'. It just does not appear to work like that in real life and real history.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

shufflingb wrote:

Persuasion works (how else does a peaceful society move forward?) but it is definitely far more of a challenge when firing the individual is not an option

Society usually moves forward with the use of some measure of force, and at least an implied threat of violence. That's how change historically has happened - I can't think of a case where persuasion entirely on it's own did much to 'move society forward'. People tend to respect those who pose a threat to them. It doesn't necessarily mean terrorism, in fact 'terrorism' seems to be a label for violence that doesn't work. Violence very often doesn't end up being made manifest, because people calculate that it's not worth the danger or trouble and so concede before it gets to that point, hence the 'peacefulness' is maintained. But if the threat of violence wasn't there, the persuasion probably wouldn't work. Almost every change in society, from the enclosures to the end of monarchy to the end of slavery involved violence. At the very least persuasion only works when it's accompanied by real changes in material conditions. And all physical action is 'violence' in some sense, at least it's part of a continuum with it, with a fuzzy boundary line. Being able to fire someone ultimately depends on violence, to maintain power relationships that allow one person to fire another. A driver obliging me to wait by the kerb to cross while they drive past is implicitly relying on the threat of violence to ensure I know my place. I'm massively overthinking this. I just get irritated with the implication that all disagreements can be resolved by everyone discussing things 'reasonably'. It just does not appear to work like that in real life and real history.

Disagreements don't always get resolved by implied violence. Sometimes it's just a matter of old ideas dying off with the older population, but I don't think that's the case with cyclist hatred as it seems to cross age groups.

The thing is that it actually benefits most people to have a larger number of cyclists on the roads and so motorists and cyclists should have their goals aligned - quality transport options that get you from A to B quickly and safely. The problem is that there's a lot of money made in keeping people in their cars, so we end up with biased media *cough*BBC*cough* and a lot of people eager to have an out-group to blame for all their repressed rage from sitting in traffic queues.

I think education is going to be more effective in getting people to realise that cyclists are not actually a curse upon the roads though there's always some people that just don't like to hear facts.