With the bill for the revision of the Highway Code approved by the Council of Ministers on 27 June 2023, some changes to the Highway Code should arrive which concern the currently difficult coexistence between cyclists and motorists on our roads. But if innovations such as urban cycle roads, buffer zones, cycle zones and lanes as well as the safety distance when overtaking bicycles should ever become law, it is not automatic that will never become effective and widespread behavior. Because the thing that is clear to anyone who rides a bike is that there is one coexistence between cyclists and motorists herd behavior issue.
Coexistence between cyclists and motorists is a matter of herd behavior
Now I haven’t really cycled all over the world, however, in some foreign countries yes.
I cycled for example in Austriawhere cyclists are as sacred as Mozart, his chocolate balls and also the beautiful Blue Danube.
I cycled in Francewhere cyclists are as sacred as the Enlightenment trinity Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
I cycled in Germaniawhere the attention to cyclists is such that, if this were not the case, there would immediately be a new Nuremberg.
I cycled in Whenwhere there are probably more bicycles than cars and therefore respect for cyclists is something that goes without saying.
I also cycled in Hungarywhere cyclists are as sacred as Goulash and like Attila and motorists also anticipate the distractions of tourists in a moving way.
I even cycled to New York, where you would expect everyone to be in such a hurry that they overwhelm the cyclists like bowling pins and actually on the bike lanes now widespread between Manhattan and the rest borough there is much more respect in the Big Apple than there is in Milan.
To say for example of the French:
And then, of course, I pedal in Italy, in the city and outside the city, and the difference with respect to these virtuous examples is plastic, substantial, evident. As anyone who has ever tried to ride a bike knows. And I live and ride exactly between where Wout van Aert said he had his worst training of the year and where Davide Cassani said he had a quiet ride of terror.
Wout van Aer’s Strava ride
The news of Davide Cassani’s social post on his ride in Brianza in 2019
So in short, I should have a bit of the callus to be extremely careful in traffic
Shit cyclists
To me the difference between cycling on our roads and doing it abroad became evident in all its plasticity last Sunday as I got on my bike, alone, from Cortina to the Falzarego Pass.
Now, the Falzarego Pass is both a magnificent mountain roadone of the most scenic in the world, which a mythical pass of the Dolomite stages of the Giro d’Italia. And it is therefore inevitable to seek coexistence between cyclists and motorists.
But just before arriving at the esplanade, on the right, there is a sign on the Open Air Museum of the Great War on which someone has written MERDE CYCLISTS. Not once but twice he wrote it, also adding NO CYCLISTS in case there was any doubt. But you who got on your bike have already understood it.
Why the group of Austrian motorcyclists that is thundering down having mistaken the road for a circuit, when it passes another vehicle it points directly at you, not caring about maintaining the minimum distance from you as you pedal uphill. And seeing them coming up front when you’re pedaling uphill isn’t reassuring.
Even the German with the SUV from dieselgateif he has to make the hairpin bend, he doesn’t wait for you to do it first on the bicycle, he does it and then squeezes you, forcing you to put your feet on the ground.
Il French with the Minivan camperato and the whole family in tow? In the Loire he would keep at least 1 and a half meters away when overtaking but being on an Italian road he furls you and against the fur to the point of brushing your ears with the mirror.
E so do everyone because it is imitative behavior, the same for which if you are driving in Switzerland and you even remotely approach the speed limit you immediately find a zealous Swiss who stands in front of you signaling that you are behaving badly, but as soon as they cross the Brogeda border they put themselves in the third lane and they start blaming you if you don’t go at least 160 km/h. Exactly like we do in our country and don’t do when we go abroad.
And it’s not even a question of herd behaviorbecause herd behavior, by definition, would be aimed at minimizing the danger of the individual for a question of collective survival, while in the motorists-cyclists relationship it is precisely a herd behavior issue.
Because if the mood is that of the cartel CYCLISTS MERDE, even those who would strictly and religiously respect cyclists in their own country, when they arrive in Italy and see the Italian herd behave with little respect for cyclists, they adapt. Because that’s how things in the world work, and that’s how human behavior works.
Photo by Noralí Nayla on Unsplash
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2023-08-05 10:06:48
#coexistence #cyclists #motorists #matter #herd #behavior
