A security camera<\/a> captured the impact. Several cyclists were hospitalized, including three in serious condition.<\/p>\nThe 30-year-old driver, who stayed at the scene, was later cited for failing to maintain his lane. The Florida Highway Patrol report listed his condition as \u201casleep or fatigued\u201d and also as \u201cinattentive.\u201d<\/p>\n
A possibly sleeping driver drifted into the opposite lane and slammed into a group of cyclists out for a weekend ride. In most cases, that would register as a straightforward case of driver negligence. Not online. Road cyclists are often treated as guilty until proven innocent, especially if they ride in groups wearing spandex.<\/p>\n
Road cyclists know that they aren\u2019t popular with some drivers. The vitriol is not new. But it feels more intense now \u2014 and the usual suspects aren\u2019t hard to identify: amplifying effects of social media, polarization flowing into everyday grievances, or just more people crammed onto poorly designed roads. Pick your culprit. All three likely contribute.<\/p>\n
Many drivers see road cyclists as obstacles masquerading as people. They resent being slowed down. They complain that cyclists don\u2019t \u201cpay for the roads,\u201d as if people on bikes are somehow exempt from taxes. Even the clothing they wear seems to be an emotional trigger.<\/p>\n
Some of the complaints are nonsensical, but the \u201cothering\u201d of road cyclists is real. A 2019 Australian study found that more than 3 in 10 people thought of cyclists as \u201cless than human.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than human.<\/p>\n
For riding a bicycle.<\/p>\n
The same research found that drivers who dehumanize cyclists were more likely to self-report aggression toward them, including throwing something, blocking their path or driving into them. That makes perfect sense. Thinking of a group of people as less than human loosens the restraints that curb our worst instincts.<\/p>\n
Road cyclists can be maddening. You\u2019re late, the road narrows, and there\u2019s a line of riders in tight shorts doing 18 mph with nowhere to pass. Some cyclists make it worse by rolling through stop signs or ignoring traffic etiquette. Some drivers do the same, at far greater scale. But the question shouldn\u2019t be whether cyclists are annoying. The question is whether the annoyance justified the animus that follows.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
No matter how maddening cyclists are, or how many laws they break, the danger they pose to other road users is minimal. Drivers kill more than four people every hour in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Recreational cyclists kill about that many in a year. Think about it: When was the last time you heard of a cyclist causing a crash that killed a driver?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been said that drivers fret about cyclists getting away with something; cyclists worry that drivers will kill them.<\/p>\n
One is an annoyance. The other is an existential threat.<\/p>\n
Most drivers don\u2019t mind cyclists. They simply want predictable behavior from everyone on the road. Traffic laws exist largely to help strangers anticipate one another\u2019s behavior and avoid catastrophe. Their attitude is \u201cwe\u2019re in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s natural. So too is that flash of irritation when encountering cyclists. The impulse is human, but how we handle it is a choice.<\/p>\n
The riders in Deland weren\u2019t hurting anyone; they weren\u2019t recklessly putting anyone in danger. A drowsy driver crossed the centerline and sent several of them to the hospital.<\/p>\n
Online, strangers decided the cyclists had it coming. That\u2019s the choice we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The online reaction quickly curdled into something between open contempt and frothing rage. The comments turned vicious \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,618,29,116093],"class_list":["post-270714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-highway-patrol","tag-florida-news","tag-road-cyclists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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