{"id":293,"date":"2010-09-09T07:16:59","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T14:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/averagejoecyclist.com\/?p=293"},"modified":"2015-01-19T23:02:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T07:02:09","slug":"community-of-cyclists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/averagejoecyclist.com\/community-of-cyclists\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Else Would Like to Go Back to a Kinder, Gentler World? The Community of Cyclists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyclists are often very kind to each other<\/strong>. The other day Maggie was biking home from work\u00a0when she\u00a0suddenly experienced a major problem with her bike. She phoned me to come and fetch her. She is a new bike commuter, and this has happened a couple of times. So as I drove off to find her, I was torn between irritation that she was in trouble again, and worry at the thought of her stranded on the side of the road, all alone.<\/p>\n

I needn’t\u00a0have worried.<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

In the 20 minutes she was waiting, the only interaction she had with other human beings was when a cyclist stopped to see if she needed help.<\/p>\n

The kindness of strangers …<\/h3>\n

\"Mrs

That is one of the things I love about cycling\u00a0– it\u00a0truly is a wonderful experience on a human level. People who cycle tend to feel a sense of camaraderie with one another, and so we smile at each other, and sometimes we even say \u201cGood Morning!\u201d At traffic lights, slower riders will politely say \u201cAfter you\u201d to obviously faster riders. And the other rider will say \u201cThank you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Road Rage has been with us since cars were first invented<\/h3>\n

\"Road

See for example this video about a truck driver who first knocks down a cyclist, then gets out of his truck and assaults him.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Sadly, this kind of behavior seems to be endemic to driving, for it has been around since the earliest days of cars. Way back in 1902, Otto Bierbaum recalled a trip from Berlin to Italy:<\/p>\n

\u201cNever in my life have I been cursed at so frequently as on my automobile trip in the year 1902<\/strong> … not to mention all the wordless curses: shaking fists, stuck-out tongues, bared behinds<\/strong>, and others besides.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And this was when speed limits had just been raised from 4 miles per hour to 14 miles per hour, and Britain had just abolished a law requiring every car to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag or a lamp, to warn more sedate road users on horses, bikes or good old feet!<\/p>\n

\"red-flag-act

Just what is it about driving cars that brings out the jerk in people?<\/h3>\n

Kristian Viladsen, from Gehl Architects in Copenhagen, pointed out at the \u201cOn the Move in the Community\u201d conference in Montreal that human beings have to be no further than two to three meters apart to identify each other\u2019s emotions. Perhaps that explains the rudeness, aggression and hostility that is so prevalent in motorists: when we\u2019re in cars, we can\u2019t see other people\u2019s emotions, so it\u2019s easy to treat them really badly.<\/p>\n

By contrast, when we\u2019re on a bike,\u00a0we can see each other\u2019s faces, and so\u00a0we tend to treat each other humanely. So cycling takes us back to a gentler world, in which we could travel and yet remain civil towards one another. The intimacy of being almost shoulder to shoulder on our sometimes difficult and sweaty journeys often brings out the friendly, kind and just plain human side of people.<\/p>\n

\"Marg

A Brave New World of Bikes and Human Kindness<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s that kindly community of cyclists that makes me regard a future in which the last drop of oil has been squeezed out of the earth, and cars are consigned to the scrap heap of history, not as a nightmare, but rather as a Brave New World.<\/p>\n

A future in which my young children and my senior mother can safely pedal down the highway, surrounded by friendly human beings, rather than hurtling, hostile drivers? Bring it on, I say!<\/p>\n

\"Children

Cyclists are often very kind to each other. The other day Maggie was biking home from work\u00a0when she\u00a0suddenly experienced a major problem with her bike. She phoned me to come and fetch her. She is a new bike commuter, and this has happened a couple of times. So as I drove off to find her, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-benefits-of-being-a-bike-commuter","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho Else Would Like to Go Back to a Kinder, Gentler World? 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