I ride pretty slowly, so I have plenty of time to think on my daily bike commute. Lately I've been thinking about some psychological consequences of bike riding. Growing up in contemporary consumer society, we're all a bit like the children of a pathologically narcissistic parent. At the same time, on some level we recognize that it wants to devour us.
Various symptoms can result.
It is the Bad Cyclist who ends up under the wheels of the truck, because he's stupid. And it is also the Bad Cyclist who hates drivers, and wants to hurt and punish them. These feelings, which any sane person has in abundance after five minutes of cycling in New York, are felt as too dangerous to the social parent, so they are attributed to the evil twin. We are all sometimes inattentive, slow to react, less than Clausewitzian in our traffic tactics. Most of us like to be nice to pedestrians, but our estimates of distance, trajectory and intent are imperfect.