We've all heard "there's no such thing as a cyclist".
There are people on bikes, and people in cars, and people walking.
Also, bullies on bikes, and bullies in cars, and bullies walking.
The vitriolic spewed at people on bicycles, the threatening hand gestures, the deliberately dangerous driving and the criminally negligent driving, the unending excuses based on what some people on bicycles do--
None of that comes with being on a bicycle.
None of that comes from bikes and cars being together.
All of that comes from having bullies in cars.
I know this for a fact because my family vehicle isn't a bike but a car driven by a person with disabilities, with slow reaction time. We achieve the speed limit only under ideal conditions. We keep a giant buffer zone. We go slower in circumstances involving any degree of darkness, weirdness, uncertainty, or weather. We are rigorous about pulling over when a couple-three cars stack up behind us.
And every trip is a lesson in the worst of humanity. Every trip we are hated, screamed at, physically threatened, and endangered by bullies in cars who will go as far as scraping and bumping our vehicle. My husband's body is very fragile; a bad pothole can leave him barely able to get home and then incapacitated for several days. He lives with serious PTSD, some of which comes straight from the life-changing car accidents he has survived (pedestrian-in-crosswalk, car-rear-ended-at-red-light). It is positively common for him to have to pull over to wait until he can stop shaking enough to safely continue... and this is on known routes within ten minutes of home.
Now, this is not a big pity party-- this is a reminder that those same bullies in cars who verbally and physically threaten people on bikes are also spewing hate and violence at people who drive slowly. It's not about the bikes. Whatever excuses they make for the way they behave to you, or me, or my husband; are all just the bully telling the victim "you have this coming."
And no amount of bike-education is going to get through that, because it's not about the bike, it's about the bully who wants what they want when they want it without having to care what the cost is to others.
Bike-education is for people in cars who actually want to be good drivers and need help. Reflective gear and sharrows and clear signaling are all for people in cars who want to be good drivers and need help. Being a good representative is about strengthening communication with people in cars who want to be good drivers.
All of these are really important tools for the majority of people in cars, but for the situations that scare us most, those people who actively threaten us, who don't want to act responsibly, don't want to pay attention, and above all don't want to slow down, we need an entirely different toolbox.
For them, we need asshole-education.
That means sharing strategies for behaving in asshole-resiliant ways and building asshole-resistant infrastructure and strengthening asshole-retardant law enforcement.
It also means powering that infrastructure and law enforcement by pulling in solidarity from our communal experience with people in cars who may not know jack about what it is like to travel on a bike but who have an extensive understanding of the dangers of bullies in cars.
It means reframing the conversation to build coalition lines along the type of personal behavior instead of the type of vehicle.
It means acknowledging the existence of the bullies on bikes and calling out the danger they present to other people-- on bikes, on foot, and in cars.
It means including bike-savvy specifics on how to recognize and deal with the bullies on bike.
And it means working in our own lives, with our choices and our children, to change our culture so that the whole underlying value of "wanting to get what you want when you want it without having to care what the cost is" isn't a high-status, desirable ideal anymore.
