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People often feel comfortable taking anger out on women because we have been culturally trained to de-escalate rather than respond with anger and/or violence and I’m sick of it. A rant about bicycling experiences. 1/n
I have now lived and bicycle-commuted in three different cities. The amount of road rage I receive when I bike alone compared to my husband is disgusting. 2/n
Once a man stop his car in the middle of an intersection so he could yell at me for going before him at a stop sign, which I did because he looked like he was waiting for me. A week later, the same man saw me walking on campus and felt the need to verbally harass me *again.* 3/n
I’ve had drivers angry at me for stopping at a stop sign or waiting for them to go (following the law) because they were waiting for me. Today I had a person yell at me because I didn’t come to a complete stop and they were *very far away from me* 4/n
I also got yelled at for biking less than 5 mph on a 4 foot wide walkway that was empty save for 1 person because it was a pedestrian walkway (the road had no bike lane, was a busy 4 lane road – I did not feel safe biking on that road). I could go on with examples… 5/n
Apparently, according tohttps://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1479-5868-9-106, 86.8% of women list driver aggression as a “constraint” to cycling. This guardian piece also bemoans women's cycling experiences https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2019/oct/04/why-are-female-cyclists-targeted-by-aggressive-drivers-for-abuse. 6/n
I understand that some cyclists are not paying attention and behave dangerously – I am not one of those cyclists. My husband disregards road rules far more often than I do, yet *I* am the recipient of hateful speech from drivers. 7/n
If you are a driver and feel the urge to yell at a bicyclist, please take a moment to consider 1) if it’s really that necessary to do so and 2) if you only feel comfortable doing so because it is a woman or a POC!! 8/n
