I quit facebook a couple of weeks back (God knows why it took me so long)

I used to find it somewhat enlightening, due to being in some interesting and diverse groups (at least that’s what I told myself). But the past months, the FB algorithm seemed to have worked out that anti-cyclist hatred caught my attention and assumed that I would surely appreciate much more adding to my feed

Already, I had been feeling much less safe on the roads the past 6 months or so after two extremely close and entirely deliberate close passes out of town (I’m talking inches close), on tiny country back roads where I’ll likely encounter the same drivers again. But in hindsight, I wonder how much these were to blame, and how much my increasing feeling of unsafety was due to FB. Or perhaps FB just stopped me getting over the minor trauma of the close passes

Anyway, all this belatedly dawned on me some weeks back and I quit FB the same day

So I’m wondering, does anyone else relate to this? More broadly, do people feel that it’s gotten more or less safe for cyclists on UK roads the past years/decades?

(For context, I’ve been on cycling since I was 8, and I’m now 38. I think the past months has been the least safe I’ve felt — and I used to do a lot more road riding)

It’s definitely less safe in certain areas, but SM does exaggerate it hugely too. The problem is that SM is antagonising both sides. Here in NL, where I spend 3/4 of a my time, we intermingle inches from each other most of the time, cars and bikes. Who crosses first at a junction is governed by a nod and a wave even if one has priority, and in a city it’s very common to have bikes on all sides less than a foot away, with no clashes and no animosity. Come back to the UK and if you dare to drive within a couple of metres of a cyclist you get a mouthful of abuse or your car punched, and if you dare to cycle filter down to an ASL you get abuse and aggressive overtakes. In NL that rarely, if ever, happens. Cars just hang back and wait for a safe overtake (and that can be <1m away) and bikes know not to swerve about or ride out randomly.

There are two reports of accidents involving cyclists on my local newspaper’s FB page today. Predictably both have attracted anti-cycling sentiment (bet the cyclist hadn’t got lights, etc). I commented on one to say “that man is someone’s son, maybe someone’s dad, grandad, brother, friend. Your comments don’t make you look clever, they make you look callous”. I am awaiting some backlash. The media and social media has dehumanised cyclists completely and yes, it does make me worried on the roads. Not scared, but certainly aware that I am nothing to most drivers other than an inconvenience.

I agree – I have to stay away from any cycling threads on social media that are anything to do with incidents now. It is just a savage pile on and intimidating.
I focus on nice things to do with bikes now.

@coffeeking, yea, it’s certainly not so much the closeness of a pass that botheres me but the intent

One of the ones I mentioned above was on a tiny back road that is so quiet that one of the locals occasionally lets their pig out to wander unaccompanied. One of those roads that’s literally a car’s width wide

I had a van floor it passed me accelerating hard, barely missing me by a couple of inches, and then just 50 yards ahead they slowed down and pulled into the verge to pass an old man out walking, as polite a pass as is possible on that road (fwiw they hadn’t been waiting behind me to pass)

I drive a coach in and out of Edinburgh every day, there are plenty of people on bikes.
Slowing down (slightly) for a bike doesn’t bother me in the slightest, partly because I’m a cyclist myself, and partly because I’ve been doing this job for 20 years and i can recognise that slowing down to ensure another human’s safety has zero effect on my running time overall.
Put another way, I’m very rarely late at the end of my shift.
**** knows how to communicate this to other car drivers though.

There definitely does seem to have been a shift to a “them and us” – cyclists are now objects/targets to a few drivers. I am generally pretty considerate on the roads…narrow ones I’ll pull into passing spaces to let cars go – that sort of thing.
However there does certainly seem to have been a post lockdown shift (remember lockdown, where people seemed to look out for one another?) – to completely the other end of the scale. Deliberate cut ups, swerves and general belligerence towards cyclists. And am sure that some of that is fueled by SM.

Thankfully most of my cycling is offroad. The road bike is still on the turbo – but even having to link trails with short sections of road… you take your life in your hands.

Edit – I am probably more jumpy since being ploughed into by a distracted mum at a T junction in 2016. That was a lack of concentration rather than malicious, but the prospect of being hit again really doesn’t appeal.

So I’m wondering, does anyone else relate to this?

It’s why I’m rarely on road.cc these days. Interested in all things drop bars, yes. Wanting to see a news section that’s >50% road rage, RTAs and ‘near miss of the day’ content? Nope.
My local road riding is 98% of the time peaceful and pleasant and 1% ‘driver could do better’, 1% ‘rider could do better’ (either my reaction to the other 1% or my influence on the traffic around me). I don’t dispute the experience many have and I think the UK has some real issues, I just don’t want to mix all that stuff up in the otherwise positive and interesting aspects of cycling.

I ditched twitter after maybe 3 years and rarely ever used FB, I don’t use it under my own name etc and when I do it’s about 4 groups and that’s it. Fk algorithm-driven media, it’s just about monetising emotive content. Drives wedges between people and stresses them out.

The problem is that SM is antagonising both sides.

Exactly. Stick to the purely social aspects and all’s ok.

my local newspaper’s FB page today.

You’re a braver man than me, venturing there..

@mccraque, I guess I’m kind of glad that I’m not the only one that feels that way, but this is really sad if it is the case

On FB, I was quite shocked at the level of dehuminisation of cyclists — not just the things the odd person says, but that really hideous comments were often the most liked

I guess it’s possible the algorithms really are killing people

You’re a braver man than me, venturing there..

I would say dafter rather than braver James.

Social media probably just shows the extent of the hatred towards cyclists that was always there but not publicly visible on such a scale, but I have personally noticed more aggression in the real world as I’ve been cycling for 12 years and for the first time ever got a milkshake thrown off my from a car window while out on the weekend. Had plenty close passes over the years but nothing like that.

dafter rather than braver

I don’t know about that..

Was thinking about this while outside for a while, in the quiet and sunshine. Algorithms are driving revenue for SM companies but if we didn’t react/engage they’d find something else to get clicks, because they need the £. So algorithms reflect us?

Social media probably just shows the extent of the hatred towards cyclists that was always there but not publicly visible on such a scale,

I wonder if FB etc, anything that has very short form / comments content, just rattles people who react to vent other stresses in life. Life is stressful in general at the moment. People in groups say daft things for likes or to join in. It escalates and the algorithms encourage it. I wonder if SM makes the polarisation worse than individuals alone would express.

I’m sure social media leads to polarisation particularly though the bubble effect of finding people with the same views.

But most people will vent on social media in a way that they wouldn’t in the real world. That’s comments let alone harmful actions

There is a catch 22 here. Cycling in the roads isn’t a massive risk. The more cyclist on the road the safer we are. The social media hype harms us if it takes cyclists off the road

I don’t think it’s any less safe on the roads I cycle on than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago – though you wouldn’t think that if you went by reports on this social media platform. I do notice some seasonal changes though. I certainly get more close passes when the tourists arrive, but then I experience the same uptick in poor driving when I’m in my car or van too, it’s not specific to being a cyclist.

My local road riding is 98% of the time peaceful and pleasant and 1% ‘driver could do better’, 1% ‘rider could do better’

Totally agree Jameso. SM makes it seem so much worse

Average 5000 miles a year on road. (not commute mind)

Been riding 20 years.

There are more good drivers than bad nowadays. This makes the idiots stand out more.

There are also more cyclists than before, sometimes intentionally or unintentionally putting themselves in harms way.

I’m more than happy to ride on roads still. I ride assertively/defensively as required, and I’m damned if I’ll let dickhead/careless motorists intimidate me off the roads.

Fwiw, in the last 20 years, maybe 60-70k miles including commuting, my worst injury was off road. The only injury I’ve had while riding on road was when pedestrian ran out into me.

My example is not proof, of course.

Slightly off topic, but still relevant, I’m interested in where folk stand regarding the reporting of bad driving.

Close passes in particular are pretty much a per-ride occurrence for me. I had a proper heart stopper a month or so back and it has been suggested that I should have reported it (I have it on video).

I’ve never reported any dodgy driving, partly because I’m a huge wuss who’s concerned about comeback – as others have said it’s not inconceivable that our paths will cross again and I’d be nervous about a confrontation. However, I also believe that we need look out for each other as a community of cyclist and dangerous driving certainly needs tackling.

Is reporting an incident more likely to shame/scare the miscreant into being more careful, or create an even more rapid anti-cycling mentality and increasing the likelihood of punishment passes and abuse to cyclists in the future? I guess positing up the footage on SM could have equally disparate outcomes.

SM makes it seem so much worse

And I have to say that there’s a certain type of commuting/daily riding cyclist on Twitter especially who seem to have the sorts of interactions with other road users and drivers and street furniture every day that I would expect to have maybe once or twice a year. I’ve notice that the twitter algorithm – like FB did for the OP serves these up to me. They fall into broadly two categories, 1. This new/existing cycling infrastructure is not perfectly suited to my personal requirements and is therefore utterly useless and a total waste of money, or 2. here’s me being close passed – again. It may be that they’ve built up followers and feel the need to serve them a constant stream of content, but I’m not sure it’s helping or contributing to making anything “better”

@nickc, yea, I think I’ve come across twitter accounts like that. Some cyclists are def not helping the situation at all

My local road riding is 98% of the time peaceful and pleasant and 1% ‘driver could do better’, 1% ‘rider could do better’

Totally agree Jameso. SM makes it seem so much worse

Average 5000 miles a year on road. (not commute mind)

I agree with this as well and am consciously trying to note the number of pleasant interactions I have

The problem is that it only take one driver to more or less ruin your life — that worry can certainly be taken too far, but I find it hard to ignore

It’s funny, I ride to work every day in Leeds, helmetless, with a lot of drivers around, and I can’t remember the last time I had a scary encounter. It’s when I’m heading out of town for a proper ride that I seem to find trouble

If I was to elaborate on the other of the close passes I mentioned: it was on a tiny back road that’s narrow even for a single-lane road, and a Tesla shot passed me without moving aside or slowing down at all, and I think the only reason it didn’t plough through me is because I swerved left into the undergrowth. I think I’ve had the same from the same car before — it’s a back road no one but residents or cyclists has any reason to use. So that experience affected me because (1) those kind of roads are normally a place you can totally relax, (2) it was malicious driving, not carelessness, and (3) I may meet the person again and there’ll be no witnesses it they do run me down

If I am riding on the road and someone hangs back then gives me a nice wide overtake when the coast is clear I always give them a little nod or wave to say thank you. It helps me remember that there are decent folk out there and it moves the focus away from the pillocks I’ve encountered.

I always give cars with cameras a wide birth, and to some extent cyclists too.

Its almost as though they are expecting trouble and therefore it finds them.

I don’t do social media like Facebook, but watching those road.cc “bad pass of the day” videos do nothing positive for my anxiety of riding on the roads.

For me on the eastern fringe of Southampton, it’s all about riding that 2-3 miles closest to home heading either north east or east. It can be pretty hostile around traditional rush hours and school run times, so I try to time my rides to not be in the “hostile zone” at bad times… Which often results in going out after dinner, at least it’s light now until ~2100! 😆

The annoying thing is that once I’m beyond Hortons Heath, Durley or Botley, usually my rides in the South Downs lanes are so traffic-free and lovely.

But the frustrating thing for now, having been able to manage literally a few very easy South Downs lane rides recently, is I’ve been exercise time restricted to ~30mins z1/2 daily by covid clinic… Which means even getting to Hortons Heath and back is a challenge. 🙁

Come back to the UK and if you dare to drive within a couple of metres of a cyclist you get a mouthful of abuse or your car punched, and if you dare to cycle filter down to an ASL you get abuse and aggressive overtakes.

Is that comic hyperbole or is that really your experience? My experience in London (boo! hiss!) is much more relaxed – but we have quite a volume of cycle traffic so maybe it’s better than other towns where cyclists are rarer…?

there’s a certain type of commuting/daily riding cyclist on Twitter especially who seem to have the sorts of interactions with other road users and drivers and street furniture every day that I would expect to have maybe once or twice a year.

Certainly if one goes looking for trouble, one will find it…

Seriously, never see any anti-cycling on Facebook. Just the stuff I follow and occasionally links to videos with skinny young women doing things (dunno what, I never click on them). Facebook did go through a phase a few months ago of trying to feed me a load of stuff I wasn’t interested in, but I just dismissed it all and now don’t see any of that stuff.
I ride to work whenever I go in and it feels the same as it did when I was doing the same 20 years ago. Apart from being harder arf.
I learned years ago not to read Youtube comments, pretty sure FB is the same. Dunno why you’d need to Quit Facebook.

Certainly if one goes looking for trouble, one will find it…

A courier acquaintance of mine (this is many years ago) never went a week without a fairly major interaction – talking the level of smashing a car wing with a D-lock sort of stuff, borderline assault etc.

I’m not sure if he actively went looking for trouble but he would pretty much always escalate any minor issues to major ones. Just a hot headed rider basically.

I’ve been cycling for 12 years and for the first time ever got a milkshake thrown off my from a car window while out on the weekend.

I’ve been cycling over 30 years. I’ve had one cigarette but flicked at me and maybe two cans, both of which were in the 90s.

Is reporting an incident more likely to shame/scare the miscreant into being more careful, or create an even more rapid anti-cycling mentality and increasing the likelihood of punishment passes and abuse to cyclists in the future?.

i can only speak for myself, but if i got pulled up because I’d done something negligent, a close pass or whatever, I would be absolutely frickin mortified.
I do take pride in my driving though.
Any driver/cyclist/ped/etc can make a mistake.

I feel perfectly safe on the roads, and I don’t use social media.

I have had one incident in 12 years of road cycling (6000ish miles per year) when I was knocked off at an oblique junction (‘sooooo sorry, didn’t see you!’). I am not bothered by close passes – what’s the point? They don’t actually do you any harm. Occasionally one makes me jump on a quiet road, but they’re mostly just incompetence on the part of the driver. I can think of a single close pass that sticks in my mind as being truly dangerous when a box van squeezed past me in the same lane at about 60mph. Fast roundabouts and side streets in towns are far more of a concern personally – have had a couple of near misses in those sorts of situations, but again that is just incompetence. 90% of people are fine, 9.8% are incompetent, 0.2% are bellends – and of that only a fraction would actually follow through if provoked.

36 years in and around Edinburgh, there has always been a lot of cyclists and I’d stay the standard of driving is generally good, just the odd nutter/idiot.

My main concern is getting doored – I regularly see drivers fling their door open without looking.

People stopped on pelican zig zags too. It does seem that the extremes are getting more extreme.

The close pass thing is interesting. Yes in one sensee it’s not that dangerous but I’ll generally give “why do that?” signal – it’s about respect and consideration. I rarely have them here but had 3 within a mile in a recent trip in Yorkshire.

Trying to be kind and friendly rather than angry makes the whole thing a lot easier IMO.

Interesting that people talk about anxiety riding on roads – I have anxiety and depression and I don’t notice it when riding in traffic.

Interesting that people talk about anxiety riding on roads – I have anxiety and depression and I don’t notice it when riding in traffic.

By “in traffic”, I’m taking that to mean a sort of urban commute style ride so forgive me if I’m off the mark with this…

I think in busy traffic on urban roads, you’re much more switched on – certainly when I was cycle commuting I rarely had time for other thoughts or considerations, it was all about my flow, the traffic around me, the junction and light timings, sections of road I knew. It was almost zen like in a way – you just get into this zone where you instinctively flick the bike around a pothole because you know it’s there, you slot in behind that car you’d spotted from 100m back as the traffic starts to move again, you can get through a 10-mile commute without once unclipping…

I think in many ways it’s a different breed of driver in urban/rush hour, they sort of expect to be queuing and in congestion and having to do deal with buses and cyclists and I rarely had any issues.

I’m not sure if he actively went looking for trouble but he would pretty much always escalate any minor issues to major ones. Just a hot headed rider basically.

I should have added to my earlier post, I’ve seen plenty of drivers escalate incidents too. One driver behaves like a dickhead (maybe cutting someone up or not letting someone pull out), the other driver gets the hump and responds and you end up with two arseholes trying to outdo each other. YouTube is full of such examples!

I do around 50k a day commuting and would say there’s at least 1 bad pass, stupid manoeuvre or lack of attention on every ride, but only maybe 1 in 50 attracts a deliberate asshat.

I wonder how the new 1.5m distance highway code thing has affected things, because it does seem like there’s been some backlash to that

As a driver, I understand that there are situations where it is hard to give that much space

And as a cyclist, I really don’t mind if a driver only gives me a foot or two of space, provided they slow down and pass respectfully

The only close passes that actually scare me are the ones that are deliberate and which blur the line between being a signal of disrespect, and an attempt to actually knock you off your bike

There are probably too many potential witnesses around at rush hour for that minority of a**holes to let their viscious instincts off the leash in the city. That’s partly why I find rural riding more stressful. The only issues I have in cities are with careless drivers, and those incidents are often easy to see coming if you are switched on — which anyway you have to be for urban riding

Interesting that people talk about anxiety riding on roads – I have anxiety and depression and I don’t notice it when riding in traffic.

@MoreCashThanDash, same, I don’t notice it in traffic, only rural riding where my nervous system is oscilatting between enjoying the calmness, and wondering if someone just tried to run me down.

I think traffic gives me a kind of low-level adrenaline hit that eases the mind

By “in traffic”, I’m taking that to mean a sort of urban commute style ride so forgive me if I’m off the mark with this…

My use of “in traffic” was a bit misleading, I don’t feel anxious when ridingon the road, even country lanes that may be prone to boy racers. Though I am on 30mg of Citalopram so maybe slightly desensitised!

I am slightly more anxious when leading group rides, having responsibility for others, I guess.

and wondering if someone just tried to run me down.

I can only think of 2 occasions in 20 years I’ve felt someone has deliberately gone for me, so my default is “they misjudged that”. I drive cars, I’m not perfect, I allow quite a bit of leeway to others maybe.

My confidence improved when I got the chance to do bikeability for free – after years of riding and commuting, my view of primary wasn’t always primary enough. Level 3 made me more assertive about primary and taking the lane, which reduced the number of times drivers could put me at risk.

A mate regularly posts close passes to the Police and shares the outcome. Some that get warning letters I’d maybe not worry too much about. Some I feel might be avoided with better road positioning, but that doesn’t excuse poor driving.

crazy-legs
Full Member
Certainly if one goes looking for trouble, one will find it…

A courier acquaintance of mine (this is many years ago) never went a week without a fairly major interaction – talking the level of smashing a car wing with a D-lock sort of stuff, borderline assault etc

must be a courier thing. A friend of mine (ex motorcycle courier) seems to have endless tales of issues and one or two which I’m surprised he didn’t get in serious trouble.
These days he just does a bit of tree work and he seemed, last time we spoke to have more issues in a 30mins drive than I do in a 40000 mile year.

Ive been in his car and his driving is fine and calm, just any poor driving from others that I’d forget about instantly, he’d take as a personal slight. If I acted a similar way I’d have a heart attack within a year.

I think he got it from his dad who was a pretty decent roadie. It’s alledged he once repeatedly slammed a drivers legs in a car door, Vinnie Jones style when out for a ride with his son and was on the wrong end of poor driving. He also (in his 70’s) put a stroppy driver on his backside whilst marshalling at an event.

A bit of adrenaline, the constantly changing environment gives stimulua, and the focus you need to not hit kerbs/things/people is a good recipe for time out from anxiety or depression imvho. There’s no steaming over comments or mistakes in the past when you’re concentrated on staying alive…

SM definitely makes it seem worse. I don’t believe it to be true though.

Weirdly, the quiet country lanes are the worst. In town/city there’s so much going on, so many vehicles, cyclists and other distractions, it all kind of blurs and generally people get on with it.

On a quite, single, back country lane – driver has been floating along quite fast, then suddenly progress is now the speed of which ever cyclist they happen to be stuck behind. Normal humans will be patient, and probably wait for an opportunity to pass. The minority will see red and take it out on you. But they are the small minority.

If I’m having a lovely casual solo ride, I will pull right over and wave cars on, and often get a wave or toot back. It costs me nothing, and might leave people thinking…nice guy that cyclist…maybe it isn’t as hostile them/us as the media portrays.

Majority of people are alright.