[Closed] Bicycles, Cars, and Psychology (possible ? for Bez)

<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">how they gauge distance, how they judge speed; how they read space – </span>

.. how so many seem to assume there is a ROW that cars have over other road users? Though that's not assumed with horses, I do think there's a lack of 'one road user, one ROW' mentality.

I'm convinced that eye-contact is a bad thing.  Of course it's important to be aware of the cars around you and try to gauge what they are about to do from road positioning etc.  But if you give good eye-contact then the car driver thinks " that cyclist has clearly seen me, therefore I can just squeeze out, or cut across, because - the cyclist has seen me, so it'll be OK" .

I agree, most drivers want to drive well vis a vis cyclists, but don't manage it consistently, so if there was a way of helping them to do it, that would be useful.

I would add "managing the perceived need to make progress" to the list.

It's an interesting question OP, and I think you have a point.

The various debates on road safety for ped's and cyclists often seem to descend into mud slinging and often wind up with people perhaps wrongly attributing malicious intent to drivers who are ultimately caught in the sort of muddled responses you describe.

I think the root cause is maybe the way people are trained to drive, with the mantra of "making progress" which is of course reinforced once they accumulate some "experience" on the roads and receive a few impatient beeps for not ripping away from the lights, drivers start proceeding on assumption rather than full assessment because of the pressure to simply be in motion rather than stationary.

I think it is psychological, drivers feel an unspoken pressure to be moving all the time, not waiting that extra beat assess a situation or allow other traffic to clear some space.

That's not to excuse it, but the first step in addressing a problem is recognizing it.

Of course how do you address such widespread and entrenched behavior? especially when those subject to it probably aren't really aware...

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I don't remember my driving instructor telling me anything about how to manage bikes. They may have done, but it clearly didn't stick. I learned a lot more from training as a Bikeability instructor some 10 years later.

Went out for a road ride yesterday, which is a rarity for me. Dartmoor is lovely, but has a lot of sudden hills, blind bends and indeterminate width roads... Can lead to difficult interactions with road users. I decided to go at it with a positive mental attitude, and make a big effort to communicate with others (particularly cars) what I intended to do, and what I expected from them.
I made a special effort to look behind and make eye contact when I could hear a car approaching, and took primary position when I felt it was not safe for cars to pass. Vast majority of cars respected this and hung back. As soon as I could see it was safe for them to pass (and sat on the bike I could see a lot further than a lot of car drivers) I would go to secondary position, look behind again and then beckon then to pass.
The result? Lots of nice wide overtaking and waves of thanks- lots of waves.
Of course it's not possible to draw definitive conclusions from a very specific set of conditions (Devon roads on a Wednesday afternoon) and it probably wouldn't work as well on a busy commute, but it did appear n this instance that drivers appreciated me taking charge of my situation on the road, and communicating clearly my intentions to look after both our interests.

If I understand the description in the OP correctly, one of those drivers had been behind a bike for the length of a section of road before overtaking inappropriately just before there would've been a better opportunity

That's not sudden confusion IMO; it's dickish behaviour

Most drivers just don't have much experience around cyclists. I see one maybe every other car journey I make. Add to that the possibility of cyclists being inexperienced road users, as they may not have had any road training or be riding/driving regularly.

You end up with a situation where both parties are uncertain how the other is going to behave, and uncertainty can easily lead to panic or poor decision making.

As for what to do about it, learner drivers could definitely do with more training on how to behave around cyclists and other 'unusual' road users. But on the flip side, how can we encourage non-driving cyclists to learn what to expect? I'm not a fan of mandatory testing and it's not just about the highway code, but learning how a car driver is likely to be thinking and reacting to the road.

Good thread,  OP.

Short of making drivers ride a bike on the road so they get a perspective on what it's like and appreciate the situation better, there's unlikely to be a good solution.

A regular in the pub I used to work in suggested everyone should have to spend time behind the bar so they'd know what it was like and not get arsey about who was next.

Have you ever considered that the drivers concerned  might just be morons?

Hi SaxonRider

I don't think the behaviour you describe is peculiar to encountering cyclists.

If you watch the way that people respond to vehicles coming towards them or catching them up with blue lights and sirens going you will see exactly the same kind of befuddled behaviour you described in your OP.

IMO/E if you create a situation where people need to deviate from routine/automatic behaviours then the quality of their response can drop dramatically if they are not fully engaged in what they are doing - i.e. driving. I'd suggest that cyclists, blue lights and to a slightly lesser extent motorbikes all fall into that 'not normal' for many drivers especially those who don't cover a significant mileage and/or varied types of driving.

DISCLAIMER: this is conjecture on my part but it seems to make sense (at least to me).

As a van-driving courier and a regular cycling commuter garage-dweller has hit the nail on the head for me.  The creeping forward after eye contact mentioned above happens to me on the bike and in a 5 tonne van all the time so it's not just a reaction to someone not in a motorised vehicle!

So many drivers are driving by instincts rather than actually paying attention it's scary at times.

Also this is very evident in normal life:

A regular in the pub I used to work in suggested everyone should have to spend time behind the bar so they’d know what it was like and not get arsey about who was next.

But you can change it to be in most situations: hotels, restaurants, shops, etc.  People in general are living closed lives where they can't relate to others in different situations.

IMO and according to stuff I have read its about a cyclist not being assessed as a "threat" subconciously

It is an interesting different mentality. I live in pretty typical bit of the city. Victorian terrace housing, limited parking and narrow streets. That means the roads are frequently too narrow for two vehicles to pass. In a car people usually go out of they way to let another car by. Often see two people sat there flashing lights at each other in an after you, no, after you dance. As soon you get on a bike that disappears. Almost everyone will drive at the cyclist and expect them to get out of the way.

There is a flip side to getting the other persons perspective too. I must admit I've gotten angry with stupid motorists doing stupid things but I drove in rush hour for the first time in ages last night and ended up doing a couple of thing that probably would've mildly annoyed me had I been on a bike riding past me. Trouble was way too many people. One set of lights changed 4 times before I got out and there was only 5 cars in front of me when I arrived in the queue. The only way to get out was for people to squeeze into gaps that weren't really there. Obviously you can choose not drive in a congested city at busy times but once you've made that bad choice I can sort of see why many motorists then go on to make the many more bad choices they do. Not excusing it just trying to understand

Here in bristol I think things have got a lot better with the 20 mph limit. Bikes and cars travel at closer speeds and people seem happier to sit behind a cyclist. It actually makes me more inclined to sit in a queue rather than squeeze into every gap and make progress when I'm on the bike. Still more than enough idiots out there, though.

I think cokeaa has got a good point

IMO it seems that a lot of drivers feel the need to be one car in front of where they are on the road and if they get held up for a few seconds it impacts massively on their ability to think straight. This thinking then transfers to any hold up, traffic lights, junctions, cyclists or ped's. Everyone is in such a rush, how many times when driving, or even cycling, have you been overtaken by some knob only to catch him up at the next lights or even pass them in a queue of traffic?.

The eye contact thing is interesting too. I've always made a point of trying to make eye contact, especially with drivers coming from my left, at junctions etc and had exactly the same thing happen to me as the OP. Eye contact was made with me followed by nudging out of the junction to the point where if I hadn't swerved I'd have been over the bonnet. The old guy driving obviously had something very important to attend to!!.

tjagain

Member
IMO and according to stuff I have read its about a cyclist not being assessed as a “threat” subconsciously

Is it time to start carrying a large obvious weapon when cycling? 😆

I agree that both cultural pressure to get somewhere fast (see a friend who nearly took me out in Dunblane yesterday as she was in a hurry on the school run) leads to drivers 'squeezing' gaps, rushing everywhere.
I am not sure I buy the eye thing - I think I get to read hidden body language stuff, and a few times have predicted the driver will pull out or keep going...

Hi Saxon Rider, a lot of work has been done on this look up Ben Hamilton Baille and a few of his keynote speeches, who himself draws a lot from Hans Mondeman and others, shared space and so on and so on and so on....

Eye contact is good, despite some of the other thoughts here. Countless studies have shown it, lower speeds  (reaction time, peripheral vision and ambiguity) help it happen,although they were near misses as you describe, you can argue that they were indeed that, misses.

A good article from a few years ago on behavioural change and sub culture which I assisted on

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/11/behaviour-is-tricky-subject-and-getting.html

As is often the case when these things get brought up, the work has been done, the guidance and expertise exists, there is nothing unique about the UK which cant be changed, we are human after all, it just need implementing effectively and the political will to do it.

flame on!

See also narrow gaps. The number of times I meet people around a road narrowing while driving and instead of waiting before the road narrowing, or going through the narrowing (as I am waiting) they stop at the narrow point.

See also passing parked with gaps in-between them, cars people following blindly in a queue, not looking if there is room for them to go into. I think people are just stupid and don't think their entire manoeuvre through.

I have experienced similar to the OP on many occasions.  Once, on a narrow ish lane a car slowed behind, and gave the two of us a nice wide berth and passed sensibly, except for the fact there was a car coming the other way.  The oncoming car slammed on, and then a moment later the passing car did the same and just sort of sat there surprised and confused level with us on the other side of the road.  We had to continue cycling, she had to pull back onto the right side of the road behind us and then pass again later.  No malice, just confusion.

I think that in most suburban towns where cyclists aren't that common people just don't encounter them enough, and when they do they consider them as just road obstacles like pedestrians or parked cars.  It's just something they don't think of.  I think people COULD learn to deal with cyclists - after all, there are plenty of stupid people in the UK but they manage to negotiate roads far more complex and difficult than roads in the US.  In fact, I would guess the majority of competent US drivers would be too intimidated to drive in the UK where stupid people manage it every day.   So we can learn to cope with difficult situations, given time, awareness and training.  In cities with lots of cyclists, like London or notably Bristol on Gloucester road, drivers are far better.

I think we badly need a public information campain, like the Think Bike one for motorbikes.  Doesn't need to be so dramatic with dead people - just to get people to consider bikes as traffic.  And I'd have it go both ways too - teach cyclists not to be dicks.  Bad cyclists need calling out as much as bad drivers.

I think we badly need a public information campaign, like the Think Bike one for motorbikes

I agree, but how to get one started? The 'Think Bike' one has had its message running for years on billboards and bumper stickers, whereas I can think of nothing enduring in cycling terms.

I do believe that educational/mind-changing campaigns can work quite effectively, but there doesn't seem to be any political will for it. Or does there need to be? I really don't know. Should it emerge from the likes of Cycling UK?

In any event, considering I started the thread with a view to soliciting people's views on the psychology of the driver that fails to 'see' or respond properly to bikes, would people agree that it takes education/constant reminders? Or are other, non-sociological, factors at play that are more difficult to overcome?

Education would work with some people, a minority I fear. Over the last few years I've come to the conclusion that a lot of the population of the UK don't give a flying f~@k about anyone else which is why I think attempting to educate them will fail. There is a particular class of folks who believe that the world owes them a life and not what they can do to make their world better, as my late Dad used to say, "tha can't educate pork".

....and I'm out...

Not sure about the "cyclists not a threat" point.  My kids are relatively new drivers and they were whilst learning, and still are, stressed out by having to cope with cyclists on the road.  Me telling them just to relax and wait doesn't seem to cure it, they still get stressed having to cope with cyclists.  I assume this is not uncommon, so dealing with that feeling of stress would be a key issue.

Sorry, howsyourdad1. I hadn't paid close enough attention to the substance of your lecture when you first posted it, and so didn't realise that it addressed the point raised by molgrips, and reinforced by me, so directly.

For those who made the same mistake as me, [url= http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/11/behaviour-is-tricky-subject-and-getting.html ]please read it[/url]. It certainly offers interesting food for thought where changing people's behaviours is concerned.

Even more reason to communicate with drivers (where possible) exactly what you expect from them, and help them to pass you safely.

@OP, if you're looking for actual research I'd look up Ian Walker and Rachel Aldred via Twitter, they'd be my first contacts for this sort of study.

There's a whole bunch of human traits at play here, though.

I'm inclined to think that we have two instincts that combine problematically: a natural resistance to slowing down and a natural tendency to value certainty (ie having to wait for a completely safe opportunity) versus chance (ie it currently looks ok, and there's only a chance—small or great—that this will change) which manifests itself behind the wheel as having to get past someone on a bike as soon as possible, even if that means things like close-passing, causing oncoming traffic to brake, or passing on a blind corner. Certainly I don't think the driving test's insistence on making progress is helpful here, and nor is the general public's tendency to drive right up your arse and twitch out to look past whenever you wait cautiously to pass someone rather than barreling through. (One of several reasons why I think there's a tenable argument that mirrors are evil, but that's another matter…)

You see the same combination of instincts manifest themselves in other contexts as well, including on bicycles.

Personally I think eye contact is a massive red herring. There are occasions when, if you can achieve it, it can help a lot (primarily, IME, when you're facing a driver across a crossroads when both of you are at give way lines and both stationary so you have time to visually negotitate) but I think it's rare that you can actually make eye contact: in the dark it's normally impossible; in bright sunlight reflections off windscreens mean it's normally impossible; when both of you are moving it's normally impossible; when you're both having to look left and right constantly it's also difficult. And even if you think you've made contact you really need some form of facial acknowledgement of your presence as it's so easy to glance right through people. So, sure, try and make eye contact if you can, but I just don't find it useful in anything but exceptional circumstances. I've always looked at the front wheelarches: you can see precisely and immediately what's going on with both steering and braking/accelerating (I was pleased to note that WMP's first blog post said the exact same).

Fundamentally, though, we've built a culture that demands uninhibited motor traffic, and that culture infiltrates everything.

There is a particular class of folks who believe that the world owes them a life and not what they can do to make their world better

Yes, there is, but I do not believe them to be in the majority.  And tbh I think assuming everyone is like that is seriously poisonous.  Sure, there might be one angry dick passing me per ride, but there are countless thousands who pass well, and many who behave perfectly reasonably to me.  Then look at your experience shopping on foot - almost everyone is decent, holds open doors, does after-yous and so on.  That's what people are really like.  I have come to the conclusion that most anti-social behaviour when driving isn't actually anti-social - it's just something they think of as normal, and don't realise it's having a negative effect on others.  That's why making eye contact whilst driving or cycling has such a big effect.  It changes a person's subconscious response.

The blue lights thing garage-dweller mentioned earlier appears to be pertinent to me on this - there was a cracker publicised the other week with someone coming to a halt in the outside / overtaking / "fast" lane on the motorway but that's just an extreme example - I frequently see people go onto panic, what-do-i-do, aaargh mode on the roads when a blue light / siren situation develops and it doe seem similar to the "really? you thought THAT was a good ppoint to pass me and my bike?" situations we get on bikes.

Why do I think that's even remotely interesting? Because, imho, it definitively puts to bed the argument that all those close passes and other dodginess are driven by malice - those drivers aren't trying to impede the ambulance / fire engine / police car, quite the opposite, but in their inability to quickly process unexpected in put data and make a decision, that's what often happens - cars stopping when just carrying on would have been the best option all round.

Not to say that there aren't some malevolent ****s out there doing it deliberately, but they are, I think a very small minority.

Hmm.

A drone carrying an iPad connected to an iPhone on your bars. The iPhone is recording your track and the iPad is controlling the drone so it follows two or three seconds behind you. At the same time they're FaceTiming each other so drivers approaching from behind can make eye contact by seeing your eyeballs on the iPad.

Kickstarter here I come 😀

There is an element of drivers being on autopilot, and encountering more than one 'hazard' at once can throw them into a state of confusion. Had one this morning on a country lane with a sheep standing on opposite side of the road, minding its own business, visible from hundreds of yards away. Driver tries to pass me nice and wide as I'm level with the sheep, and ends up having to throw on the brakes. Weird.

Have to agree with Bez's post - everyone's in too much of a hurry (I am when I'm in the car, cos I just want to get out of it again!) and making progress to ensure courtesy and safety are the priorities.

So often, when there's a safer option, eg. [i]waiting a second or two[/i] they'll take the chance that it'll be safe a do the risky move. (Like that tractor driver who overtook me).

100% self driving cars on the road is the only solution I can see coming. Education/campaigns/whatever, none of it'll work in the ingrained culture.

[edit] Not [i]everyone[/i] really. Most.

100% self driving cars on the road is the only solution I can see coming.

I'm not so sure. I foresee manufacturers complaining that cyclists are too difficult for the technology to manage and recommending that we use cycle paths instead.

I'm not sure it's most; I tend to think it's actually everyone. Not "being in a hurry", but having that deep-seated resistance to change, meaning we find it uncomfortable to slow down and pass cautiously.

The problem is that, regardless of whether or not there is an innate instinct to resist such change, we are inculcated with the idea that traffic—but most of all motor vehicles—should flow flow "freely". Advertising does it, driver training does it, peer pressure does it.

I know that I had to re-program myself years after I was trained and examined. Leaving space for people on bikes and passing cautiously was something I had to do consciously, overriding my habituated behaviour of keeping a constant speed somewhere near the speed limit. It was left to me to (a) realise my instilled behaviour was bad, (b) make the decision to change it and (c) make the effort to apply that change.

People aren't trained or influenced to make cautious driving a natural-feeling habit: they're trained and influenced to do the exact opposite. And many people won't pro-actively go through those three steps above.