vividspecterWhy is the right at war with cyclists? We’re not ‘wokerati’ – we’re just trying to get around | Zoe Williams
I feel like this article is really missing out the part where oil interests are intentionally funding hatred of other modes of transportation. The PragerU video on “The War on Cars” is a good example. They are funded by oil companies, and this is public information that is easy to find. And they use that platform to prevent other modes of transportation from being safe or viable.
Bicycling industry lobbyists need to step up their game
I think one of the main points in the article is that there is no group of cyclists able to come together to lobby and tbh, I don’t see how it’s really possible. It’s something I’ve been thinking for a while.
I am a cyclist and a driver. I am not personally in a lobbying group for either. However, like another poster said, oil companies and car manufacturers have the money and reasoning to come together to lobby on behalf of drivers regardless of my actual wishes but they’ve got lots of my money from having bought and maintained a car. Cyclist manufacturers aren’t exactly large, have much money or are as combined into a few multinationals. There is no fuel industry either.
I don’t really know any other cyclists like me who are more casual, and use it for local journeys. I want better segregated lanes, better and more secure parking (my bike got stolen recently), the police to actually care about bike thefts, and more considered routes/junctions. There are social groups of long distance weekend cyclists but tbh, they have completely different priorities and interests to me. Even when I used to commute my cycling habits were completely different so my requests would be different.
frankPodmoreDepends where you live, of course, but in the UK, where this article was published, there are quite a few organisations for cyclists, like the London Cycling Campaign, British Cycling and Sustrans (which advocates for Sustainable Transport generally, hence the name, but I think focuses mainly on cycling).
I think all three are membership organisations, with slightly different focuses (like obviously the LCC focuses on London!). The LCC definitely is partly funded by the bicycle industry.
Very interesting, thank you for sharing!
Some of these are exactly what I was thinking so will join or see how they can help. However, I do get the sense they have no real say in local politics here given what I’ve seen in proposals and plans from the local and county councils. I noticed new caveats to some of the 20mph and LTN type plans (which are far behind other areas already) with “depending on the wishes of actual residents in that area”, or something along those lines added that sounds like full on NIMBYISM or anti-woke to me. I do reply to consultations with my concerns as a local cyclist but don’t see much changing. Perhaps doing so as part of a group will be better.
Unfortunately I’m just outside London in Surrey where the infrastructure is awful. There is a noticeable drop in quality as soon as you cross the invisible border. It’s worse for cyclists and pedestrians.
For example, the behaviour of car drivers outside my child’s primary school is terrible and they school constantly asks people to be more careful but the council doesn’t seem to care. They have yellow lines on the smallest stretch you can imagine and not even on both sides of a small road, which are ignored anyway. The road is still 30mph, there are no ped crossings, let alone crossing guards. I even requested parking enforcement to come. They said would add it to their list but have seen them once in 6 months.
Sorry, turned into a bit of a rant towards the end!
Sure, there are lots of advocacy groups for good things with positive externalities that exist… but the funding for them tends to be vastly lower than the amounts thrown at lobbyists from industries with negative externalities.
There’s not exactly the same amount of money sloshing around in the cycling manufacturing industry. It’s a relatively cheap product, and there’s no consumables involved. In contrast, if you drive, you give the oil industry something like $100/month.
I’ve been to the Pacific Cycle corporate headquarters, the current owner of well-known brands like Mongoose, Schwinn, GT, and Rioadmaster, supplier of most of the bicycle-shaped objects sold by mass-retailers like Walmart and Target.
That’s right, into the very belly of Big Bike!
And, uhh, they’re not very big. I’ll bet more people work at the Toyota dealership just down the highway. That is to say, bicycle industry lobbyists don’t stand a chance against automobile lobbyists.
MalReynoldsAgree. Bad media is bad.
☂️-its from british neoliberal media what did you expect
Because car is freeeeddddooommmm.
And as we know all too well from history, enabling other freedoms (women’s suffrage, marriage equality, or now getting around by bike) disrupts those already established freedoms!
henfredemarsFor many drivers, a car is debt in addition to a large recurring expense.
Debt == freedom?
Yea thats pretty much the lie we are sold and forced to participate in for most of car centric North America.
skyeconservatives don’t get mad at anything they don’t personally do or don’t make things up about other people to get mad at challenges (impossible)
We’re not ‘wokerati’
But we are, though: cyclists are “better people” than drivers. And the right hates better people.
Huh, interesting article, thanks!
the study didn’t attempt to determine whether people more oriented toward the common good are simply more likely to ride bikes, or whether riding bikes actually increases people’s interest in the common good.
I’d be curious which is the chicken and which is the egg.
go vegan
【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】It’s true. I know I should be vegan. Convincing me it’s the right move isn’t the hard part.
I mean it more in the sense of, “go vegan, get hated by everyone”
Yeah asking why conservatives think bicyclists are all radical leftists is a boring question full of answers we already know.
The real question is why the hell anybody who enjoys riding a bicycle (and walkable infrastructure in general) can at the same time be a conservative or even a centrist.
Like…. what are you doing? Have you not thought through the history of why the simple act of riding a bicycle or walking through your community puts your life at risk because our public spaces starting right outside our front door are utterly devoted to cars?
VoyajerThey’re afraid the lycra will awaken something in them
Stupid Sexy Flanders
Feels like I’m wearing nothing at all!
Nothing at all!
Dental plan!
rmukMonorail!
Lisa needs braces.
ArxCyberwolfCanyoneroooo!
TropicalDingdongLook, I’m generalizing here, but there seems to be an almost intentional effort on the part of many journalists and journalistic outlets to misunderstand “The Right”.
Its the charity part, which, like I get the journalistic training and the importance of giving someone you might disagree with the the charity required to have a conversation, but “The Right” has been using this act of good faith to further their agenda. We shouldn’t be giving them charity. Period. They’ve broken with the good faith required to support that charity. “The RIght” aren’t arguing or acting in good faith, and so charity shouldn’t be extended to them. They are captured by a kind of cynicism that is not compatible with civil society.
OgmiosI frequent both right and left wing areas of the web to try and keep tabs on what everyone is talking about, and literally the only place I’ve ever seen this sort of anti-cyclist circle jerk is on reddit.
It definitely still happens in the conservative tabloids, although that has been around for many years already.
Google Aaron Freeman and Indiana SB-52. Granted, he was opposing dedicated bus lanes rather than bike lanes, but it’s the same argument. Then google who his biggest donors are.
TrickDacyIt absolutely happens many other places, including Facebook, nextdoor, local blogs, and get this, irl. I have been threatened more than a couple of times directly, and even more times indirectly. People fucking hate cyclists. All because they dare to not drive a fucking car (sometimes).
I used to be annoyed by cyclists because from my perspective I thought I could easily kill them by accident and they were clogging up the road. That was a very selfish attitude but it was mine. I don’t know if that’s what others are thinking but the hatred is very, very real.
Really? Try riding a bike in a city once.
Really? I’ve seen it literally on fuckCars, here on Lemmy!
It’s pretty simple when you realize that conservatives are addicted to hate. In order to prioritize their hatred, they target people who make them feel like an asshole and people who are in their way. You can boil these down to people who make them uncomfortable.
Yeah, you gotta reframe it. “Don’t you miss when people used more traditional ways to get around? Give me a horse or a bicycle any day”.
They will agree to fucking anything if you preface it as “traditional”
Nah they’ll just call you a hipster or something.
I think cyclists secretly love cars. Otherwise why do so many end up on a car hood or under its wheels?
It’s probably one of those BDSM things really…
The GOP want to maintain civil liberties.
Just not YOUR civil liberties.
This is an article in a British paper, written by a British journalist, about her experience in Britain, and names multiple British people.
There is no mention at all of America, nor Americans.
So what does your republican party have to do with it?
Far right conservatives around the globe are using the same playbook.
Yeah my bad I didn’t read it, just kind of browsed through and left my two cents on the headline.
I also didn’t read the article, although I was clued in By an earlier comment, but …. A lot of these comments could have been about the US. Conservatism seems to have the same hatred problem everywhere you go. All the big truck comments probably were from the US: that can’t be as prevalent in the UK
A lot of people miss the fact that cyclists are just people getting about the place. As for example when you hear people say, ‘Oh, it’s only middle-class men who cycle, so why should we build bike lanes?’ as though it’s somehow the case that middle class men who choose to cycle just like… deserve to die? It’s a really common argument that people make and they’ve not even thought about the obvious implication of what they’re saying.
Even if it were true that all or most cyclists were middle-class and male, which it isn’t, I’m never sure whether it’s the maleness, the middle-classness, or the cycling that has apparently warranted the death sentence.
Making it seem like it’s predominately something done by middle-class men, or even rich people, helps to undermine public support for it because of the image people have of a stereotypical male cyclist, ie a well-off person riding a $1400 bike with a bunch of lycra clothes and tech gear pretending they’re training for the Tour de France while they go through their midlife crisis. It’s much less relatable an image for many people, who might say “Well, why do they need to ride on all the roads? They can just go on the paths in the park, or if they have so much money, they can go to a purpose-built facility.”
If you frame it as though it’s just going to benefit a bunch of people perceived to be living it up, you can drum up opposition from poor people, who don’t want their taxes going to fund some BS project that only benefits people who are already doing alright. Your aunt that’s busting her back trying to make ends meet and is trying to get back and forth to work and the shops on a bike one step up from a Wal-mart special can be much more relatable for many people who are struggling to keep up, can’t really afford their car payment and might even use a bike if there were dedicated bike lanes. So people looking to discourage building out bike infrastructure will naturally prefer that everyone thinks the only ones who would benefit from these developments would be some middle-manager who owns his home, rides a bike that costs more than your rent and that has gone on more vacations in the last year than you have in the last two decades.
You’re absolutely right! As a middle-class man who cycles and just doesn’t want to die, I still find it very annoying.
The same argument is used to attack veganism, even though the diet aspect of it is cheaper (as long as most meat imitations are avoided, although those will get cheap too in the long run).
On cycling, the fact that certain groups might more predominately use the infrastructure indicates the infrastructure isn’t sufficient. It’s working well if 5 year olds, 80 year olds, and parents with children are using it, and not just young fit men.
I’ve read that vegetarianism is cheaper than meat-eating, but veganism is more expensive, but I’m sure you’re right that it depends on what exactly you eat! In any case, it’s quite an odd argument for anti-vegans to make: ‘You can afford to do something good and that’s why you shouldn’t’?
When i was a vegan my main protien sources was beans and chickpeas which are way cheaper than cheese and eggs, which are common vegetarian protiens.
Also, the main reason women and children rarely cycle is because women are more risk averse and nobody wants their kid riding a bike on the road with people driving emotional support trucks. That mostly just leaves men who are willing to risk it or who can’t afford to drive.
PedestrianError 
@Moneo @frankPodmore Avoid generalizations and stereotypes if you want to meaningfully analyze an issue. Women score higher than men on risk aversion *on average*. There’s no evidence of enough biological or socialized difference in risk taking to explain the entire difference in bicycling. Various other factors are in play, including childcare burden, street harassment, access to leisure time, social support for cycling by parents & peers, and gendered dress codes/norms at work & school.
Yeah, definitely. It’s not really surprising that the group most likely to cycle is also the group that’s socialised into taking risks!
@frankPodmore @vividspecter Since middle aged, middle to upper class white men are also most likely to drive monster trucks for everyday transportation & recreation, we could also argue that for the safety and comfort of all we should do everything possible to get that group onto bikes instead of trucks.
But instead, they turn around and blame traffic problems on women taking their kids to school!
Fearing change.
I have a hypothesis about the right. Some of what happens is to protect the ego.
Consider bike riding. Riding a bike is better for the environment and their health. This prompts questions like “why am I not being better for the environment? Why am I not being better for my health?”
One option when faced with that sort of uncomfortable question is to reject thinking about it and get mad at other people. Do not consider anything negative about oneself. That’s uncomfortable and difficult. Being mad about other people is easy.
This resolves the cognitive dissonance, though in its own expensive way with its own tradeoffs.