McSweeney’s bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.
You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.
This tracks, there’s actually some evidence that drivers behave more dangerously around cyclists wearing helmets.
Scientists should study carbrains more, and try to understand why cyclists trying to protect themselves seems to attract drivers like moths to a flame.
Ever been in the car with an actual
?
Their road rage ignites the moment they see a cyclist, especially if somehow the cyclist looks gaaaaay to them.
I found the most effective, consistent method of triggering
into a blind rage is to simply smile and give them a thumbs up. I wonder if it’s something about appearing content and happy while they are bound by all the contradictions and inconveniences of owning a car, especially in a city.
I actually had to stop doing it because one guy sped up so much to beat me to the next red light, he first very nearly hit me on the way and then had to slam on his breaks so hard he lost traction and almost spun out - all this in the middle of a city intersection with narrow roads, no less.
You may be on to something.
On a similar trip with a
driving, the 
was rambling about how much he hated “the wife” and how men are always miserable when they are married and other 
tier misogynist bullshit.
I responded that I loved my wife, and said so with in a non-confrontational exceptional way to his claim that every man must be unhappy when married.
He got so enraged he swerved and almost hit something.
Yeah that’s not a thing. 100% persecution complex.