Sometimes, a review of how we got here is helpful.
Cyclist Inferiority
by John Forester
I have used the term "cyclist-inferiority" in several applications, but these application all serve to describe aspects of the false concept that cyclists are inferior to motorists.
The political application is that it serves the motoring organizations, and therefore the highway organizations that they control, and in addition many politicians, to consider cyclists as inferior to motorists. By considering cyclists inferior to motorists, government can deny to cyclists some of the important rights that apply, in legal terms, to drivers of vehicles, but which are commonly supposed to apply to motorists, because cyclists and motorists are the only significant users of the nation's roadways. The rights denied are denied purely for the convenience of motorists. The most important of these are the right to use most of the width of the roadway, and the right to use roadways at all when bike lanes or bike paths have been produced, or those roadways which cannot be reached by driveways. The only reason for these restriction s that stands up to scientific analysis is the belief, on the part of motorists, that cyclists delay motorists.
The social application is the extension of the above political excuse to characterize cyclists. The official view is that 95% of cyclists are unable to learn how to obey the traffic laws. Of course, they conceal this behind propagandistic jargon, terming the ability to obey the traffic laws "expert skill" and those with it the "elite." Since cyclists are very little different from the population at large, that means that, supposedly, 95% of motorists must be incapable of driving properly. However, the meanness of that attitude is demonstrated immediately by the obvious reluctance of the same motoring organizations and motorists to restrict motor-vehicle driving privilege to those who demonstrate an expert, elite, level of skill. No, as long as you drive a car, only considerably below average skill is required to receive a driving license. It is absurd to consider that most adult cyclists are incapable of knowing how to obey the traffic laws when most adult cyclists, in the USA at least, have been certified by the government as having that knowledge and skill. The only excuse for this absurdity has to be the false idea that riding a bicycle makes you temporarily incompetent, an incompetence from which you recover the moment you get behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle.
The superstitious application of the phrase cyclist-inferiority refers to the feelings induced in people by the propaganda which has been used to promote motorists' interests. These feelings include the ones that cars own the roads, that cars don't look out for me, that I, when on a bicycle, am an intruder onto their range, from which they will eject me by either threats or death. One pervasive and effective form of that propaganda has been the traditional bike-safety propaganda program (it never was safe cycling instruction and cannot be called that), which taught cyclist-inferiority superstition, no matter how dangerous that was for cyclists. Thirty percent of car-bike collisions in the Cross study (mid 1970s) are caused by the cyclist obeying the precepts of bike-safety education.
The psychological application of the phrase cyclist inferiority refers to the cyclist-inferiority phobia, complex, or superstition, depending on severity of the case. This is the sense that:
"I, the cyclist, don't really belong on the road, which is owned by the cars, and that I am unable to follow the traffic laws for drivers of vehicles, or that if I did I would quickly be smashed.
"The roads are very dangerous places where everybody is against me, and where I have no place that I can call my own to which I could retreat as a place of safety. Since the greatest danger is from cars, which operate to my danger, obviously the greatest danger to me is the same-direction traffic that comes from behind. To protect myself from this great danger, I must do all that I can to avoid same-direction motor traffic, to defer to it when it is present, to always give it the right of way, etc., including promoting bike lanes and bike paths to protect myself from this danger."
It suits motorists, which means most people in the USA, and therefore the various governments of the USA, to have cyclists considered inferior to motorists. That provides the excuse for doing things that clear the roads of cyclists for motorists' convenience. And it assists them a whole lot if cyclists cooperate by considering themselves to be inferior to motorists.
For all of these reasons (and there are probably more), it is accurate to apply the name of "cyclist inferiority" to the type of cycling and the associated feelings, superstitions, and political urges that carry out this program of motorist superiority.
John Forester
726 Madrone Avenue
Sunnyvale, California 94086
408-734-9426
12 comments:
As much as I agree that this inferiority is misplaced or mistaken, I am not in the least surprised by it.
It is difficult, no matter how logical or correct it may be, to be assertive when one is completely out-numbered.
The strength found in numbers is manifested somewhat in sites like this one, but adding to the numbers of educated cyclists requires voicing sometimes unpopular or contentious opinions with lots of other people. That is, in my opinion, the hardest part for most of us. It's tough to do without turning it into a useless shoving match. Here's hoping we all do the best we reasonably can to spread the word in sensible, useful ways.
Discrimination against minorities often involves willing or grudging collaboration by the members of those minorities.
Some of them believe the propaganda, some are intimidated by the threats (read the comments after any cycling fatality), some hope that by going along, they'll get good treatment.
Rantwick, I really appreciate your comment.
I believe we have entered a new era, where dissent from the subservient-cyclist position is not to be tolerated.
The cycling advocacy sites that I am aware of that ban posters, and edit and delete comments, are all Paint'n Path sites that won't tolerate ongoing deviation from the CIC mythology. I have intentionally deleted only two comments in the history of Cycle*Dallas, both because they were personally abusive to others (one was a pro "PnP" poster, one was a "VC").
I welcome differing opinions (the team members here are about as unified as the Democratic Party was in the 1930s). While we share a common appreciation for the RIGHTS of cyclists to operate as vehicles, we have a full spectrum of understanding as to what that means in the details. I also welcome dissenting comments, as they afford the opportunity for correction. How will they know the truth if no one tells them?
I do not want this to become a piss and moan site (even though I am pretty pissed), or a site that focuses on individuals (and pissed at some individuals) rather than concepts and facts. On occasion, individuals have to be called out by name, but only rarely, and never personally.
Truth-seeking cyclists are often puzzled by the neo-orthodoxy of the new cycling advocacy. A friend of mine, who hasn't been involved in this stuff for almost a decade, was shocked to discover how reviled John Forester has become. Why? Because he tells the truth, bluntly and imperfectly... and because he relies upon provable facts over romantic observations.
Every day over the last twenty years, I have dealt with the reality of people's safety as bicyclists. Many of the myths were once believed by me, because that's what everyone said. When I researched the discrepancies, I began to discover that a small, tight, insular group was responsible for much bad policy, and that they had been successful by embracing the cyclist inferiority position, because it told scared cyclists what they wanted to hear, and because it achieved the goals of the anti-cycling motoring groups (who paid the bills).
So here we stand. We can do no other.
Rantwick said:
"...adding to the numbers of educated cyclists requires voicing sometimes unpopular or contentious opinions with lots of other people."
That is so true, and so sad.
When I started trying to educate club cyclists here in town, I was met with blowback that surprised me. I went from a position of popularity and respect (I thought) to being marginalized and ridiculed.
I approached it with enthusiasm, thinking it made so much sense. It solved all the problems we all complained about. Surely others would embrace it, too. I nurtured relationships and had personal conversations with key people. They would all nod in my face that it made total sense, but then snicker behind my back with the people who claimed I was going to get run over or shot by a redneck. When it came down to promoting or defending good practices, they chose popularity over integrity.
The people who work to undermine what I and other LCIs are teaching have so much more power because they have popular sentiment reinforced by cultural mythology and pervasive PnP propaganda.
It's hard not to get bitter when you're working for safety, equity and empowerment for cyclists and your strongest adversaries are cyclists.
That's the choice with the red pill... you take it and you're free of the matrix, but exiled as well. You look back in and see that all the people still trapped in there are feeding the machine that imprisons them. What do you do?
It is much easier to go along with popular sentiment. I mean, "it's only bicycles." Unfortunately, that's just never been in my DNA.
PM - I think perhaps you misunderstood my post a little, because I switched tacks (or thoughts)on "strength in numbers" in mid-writing.
I would like to clarify, even if you did indeed know exaclty what I meant.
It is difficult, no matter how logical or correct it may be, to be assertive when one is completely out numbered ... by motorists, whether on the road or at the water cooler.
There is a different but smaller kind of strength in numbers, and some comfort and supoort for the embattled VC... is manifested somewhat in sites like this one...
That's how I should have written it the first time.
Rantwick saith; "It is difficult, no matter how logical or correct it may be, to be assertive when one is completely out numbered ... by motorists, whether on the road or at the water cooler."
I pretty much understood you (dang, English is hard work!), but your clarification brings up a point almost totally ignored by cyclists. The presumption is that you will be on your bike, surrounded by cars and trucks, when the reality of speed disparity (the "rubber-band effect") is that 80-90% (or more) you will be riding on car-free roads.
When competent cyclists discover this fact (and how to manipulate it) they become confident cyclists. Confident cyclists quickly become vehicular cyclists.
Cyclists are inferior to drivers though. Even though they are largely equal under the law, a cyclist (as compared with a driver):
. Is not capable of the same speed
. Is much less common on the roadways
. Is more vulnerable to injury in an accident
You might say that this is only a problem if the motorists behave badly and/or take advantage of these characteristics. You may be even be correct. But that doesn't matter, because motorists *do* behave badly and take advantage of their faster, more numerous and more protective vehicles to cyclists' disadvantage.
Sure, but bicyclists have this advantage: Our right to the public way is a natural right of travel, originating in the deepest mists of common law. An automobile operator may only proceed onto the public way by permission, a grant that can be lawfully removed.
A motorist's fear of being afoot restrains his passions!
A rather romantic view of the situation, Chipseal.
I think a motorist's fear of being afoot is in indirect proportion to the number of witnesses around...
SteveA said: "I think a motorist's fear of being afoot is in indirect proportion to the number of witnesses around..."
So to make Steve's observation into a doctrine: Heavy traffic makes cycling safer because it constrains bullying behaviors.
Perhaps we should be promoting automobile use? A new "safety in numbers" paradigm? ;)
Let's just say there's an optimum density of motorists. Too many and they start getting in the way & they get crabby. Too few and they can't keep an eye on each other or keep the street debris properly swept. Like most things, lets keep our motorists in moderation...
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