Angry City.

I ask myself all the time why I continue to ride in this city. Everyone is so angry and only worried about themselves. It’s all about me before you. Why do we continue to ride when there is so much hatred/anger/obviluousness to human life as cyclists and pedestrians? 

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Permalink Reply by Alex Z on December 26, 2018 at 5:32am

I've often found this as well, but of course it's blind chance who we encounter on a given day.

Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on December 18, 2018 at 11:42am

I've gotten used to and know how to ride downtown but the "new and improved" LFT is now the hostility is coming from joggers and other cyclists. I was and the wrong side of the trail several times on my way home so do we ride on the side closer to the lake or to the drive?

It seems to me its a criss cross game.

It will only get worse in the Spring.

Permalink Reply by David Barish on December 19, 2018 at 9:52am

last week I was walking in  the loop  and  at Dearborn and  Randolph a guy in a car stopped when  the light was turning from  yellow to  red on a crowded afternoon while the  Christkindlemarket was in  full  swing.  The  guy behind him was miffed and  also kissed the car in front. He  started yelling at the guy who had done  the right thing and stopped. At first, having watched  this unfold I point blank told the two of them who was right and  who was wrong  and that  they were  lucky there was minimal, if any damage, and there was  no need for it to escalate.  I then thought the better of  it in  a world where weapons are carried on the streets and  walked  on.  I  was a block away at  Clark and  Randolph when  the two of them,  who had both made  left turns from Dearborn onto Randolph came upon  me and  the  aggressor was still yelling at the guy who had stopped. I didn't look  up  and  kept walking.

Permalink Reply by Gage B. on December 19, 2018 at 11:52am

I got told to Fuck off by a driver at the same spot today who ran the light and then got stuck in the path of the dearborn bike lane because you know traffic.

Permalink Reply by Ernesto Lube on December 19, 2018 at 12:04pm

Angry driver. 

Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 19, 2018 at 1:58pm

1950... not much changed since:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgVcGjzgR4

Permalink Reply by Carter O'Brien on December 20, 2018 at 8:03am
Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 22, 2018 at 3:00am

Where to begin with  this? i don't know where you ride, but i find your take on drivers' courtesy rather elitist and classist, verging on racist. Have you cycled in a "third world " country?

i do a lot of cycling through some pretty well-to-do neighbourhoods, and also some pretty hardscrabble towns and rural areas, and i have no way of knowing how "educated" or "acculturated" any given driver may be. If anything, i guess one could make a conjecture about a driver's economic or class status by observing the vehicle or the apparent affluence of the immediate area, but that would be an unreliable standard of measure. Having said that, my experience seems to be the opposite of yours- i find drivers in the more -apparently -economically well-to-do areas, driving finer autos, etc. and thus seemingly fitting your profile of "educated" or "acculturated", to be generally ruder and more entitled than those in more -let's call it "working class" or "down-market" or even "urban" parts of the world.

Bad driving, entitled attitudes, etc. does not have to do with lack of "acculturation" or lower "class." If anything it has to do with too much "acculturation," "breeding," and too much  "upper-class" entitlement.

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on December 22, 2018 at 5:44am

"Verging on racist"?! No, let's call it what it is -- it IS racist (and elitist and classist.) What next, clp, a lecture on eugenics? You are not half as clever as you pretend to be. But "stimulating" legitimate debate is not really your intention, is it? You are receiving far too much attention for your "provocative" positions and THAT, I suspect, is your real motive. Regretfully, I fall into the trap by responding. My new year resolution will be to endeavor to not feed the troll.

Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 22, 2018 at 8:11am

i didn't really want to pull out a full-on accusation of "racist," but yeah.  Elitist, classist, and xenophobic work pretty well though. i was trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but the poster is running out of doubt benefits. Whatever one's take, the dog whistles were pretty loudly blown

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on December 26, 2018 at 9:14am

I do most of my riding on the south side. I generally get treated better by drivers in Englewood or Roseland (where I am a minority) than I do in areas of entitled drivers like Old Town and Lincoln Park. 

Permalink Reply by Ernesto Lube on December 22, 2018 at 3:21am

When I lived in Wisconsin, you had the polite people and the jerks (bottle throwing, swerving, no room on rural roads, getting yelled at). 

When I lived in Highland Park, same (no bottle throwing, just assholes) - the kind people and the jerks - and that's when I also encountered the jerk groups of cyclists on weekend mornings. 

Moving to Chicago - same thing. Kind drivers who follow the rules, and jerk drivers who don't care about others. 

Which group of immigrants are you referring to? Stereotypical Mexicans? When we moved to this country, my dad bought a new and shiny 1988 Ford Taurus with all the bells and whistles. We moved to Libertyville and ate Mexican food at home. The car didn't become our identity - we hated it because we actually needed a minivan. Three growing teeangers don't quite fit in the back of a Taurus. 

Three years later, my dad traded in the Taurus for a Mercury Villager - much better and practical. 

We didn't drive everywhere. My parents would walk downtown for dinner. My siblings and me had bicycles - we felt more freedom riding the bikes on the DesPlaines River Trail.

Sure were' Mexican - we've been stereotyped all our lives. We have identities. We felt lower class.

We came from a 3rd world country. It is a matter of acting with courtesy and respect for others. It is how my grandparents taught my parents, and they passed it down. 

Those other immigrants you refer to - they don't have a common sense gland, and they probably drive uninsured.

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