Comment by dylan604
11 hours ago
I'm in Texas, and I get coal rolled multiple times a year while I'm riding my bike. One asshat actually hit my shoulder with his extended mirror. After that, I started using my GoPro as a dashcam since I wasn't able to get the asshat's license plate number.
Man I got hit so many times as a cyclist in TX and GA. It took me awhile to realize that in GA, it was sometimes intentional. I hadn't realized how much bicyclists were disliked.
There’s something about driving cars, particularly larger ones which induces extreme violence in people. These same people wouldn’t kill you in a fist fight but would do it with their cars without a thought.
I don’t known if its the heat or lack of greenery but everything I hear about riding bikes or motocycles in Texas just makes it sounds like there is some deep latent aggression there. I have bicycled in a bunch of states including the Southeast and never encountered anything like the stories people tell about Texas.
Open up any kind of cycling content on social media and you see droves of comment literally calling for killing cyclists. Turns out some people are just ontologically evil.
It has basically 0 pedestrian or bike infrastructure (at least where I was at, Irving, was that way). You have to drive everywhere otherwise you are literally in the middle of the got dang road.
The speed limits are also all high. They get up to 50 mph in as many places as possible.
It also doesn't help that they've got some of the worst road marking of any state I've been in. There were a lot of roads where it was simply unclear how many lanes were supposed to exist.
Now imagine throwing a bike into all this.
I don't think it's so much aggression as it is really really terrible infrastructure.
Also, FTR, Texans are actually pretty polite drivers (at least they were circa 2011 in Dallas area).
2 replies →
Ok I’m not from the US. Why do people do this?