Sometimes a motorist's animosity toward bicycle riders stems from a negative experience with a scofflaw cyclist--or one who is following the safest and most sensible practices but somehow manages to inconvenience said driver. Other times it comes from our actual or perceived "privileged" status: While many of us are indeed better-educated and younger (I am, in spirit!) than the population generally, there are also some who pedal because, for whatever reasons, they can't drive.
Notice a word I used in the previous paragraph: "perceived". Perceptions, as we all know, are not the same thing as reality. More than once, I have had non-cyclists berate me and other cyclists because of inaccurate notions about us.
I think now of a time when, on a narrow Brooklyn street, a man driving just behind me wanted to park in a space I was passing at that moment. He leaned on his horn; I glanced back at him and lipped, "Excuse me." Then he let out a stream of profanities and what sounded like a threat.
I turned back and said, "Excuse me, sir?"
Then he went into a rant about how careless cyclists are because we "get to use the same streets but don't have to pay for them." I asked him to explain himself. "I have to pay all sorts of taxes to maintain these streets."
"I do, too. We all do, whether or not we drive. All of that is funded from what's deducted from our paychecks--or what you pay if you're an independent business owner."
He had the frustrated look of someone whose anger had, against his will, been defused. "Yeah, but I'm still paying more taxes than you."
"Probably not. Do you have kids? A mortgage? Any loans?"
He looked confused.
"I am a single renter. And I can't claim the deductions that some people claim. I don't get those big refunds I hear about from other people--if I get a refund at all."
He actually seemed to be listening to me. "The only tax that you pay, and I don't, is for the gas in your car. But even there, I pay, too, because the price of gas is subsidized. Why do you think we don't pay 10 dollars a gallon, like they do in France and Germany?"
From there, our exchange became less acrimonious, and I wished him well.
I thought about that encounter, again, when I came across a letter to the editor containing the "If they want to use our roads, let them pay for it!" canard. It's amazing how the misconception that we don't pay our "fair share" still exists.
What bothered me almost as much is the editor's response: That Oregon cyclists are indeed paying their share with the bicycle tax that was imposed two years ago.
What was that about two wrongs not making a right?
Notice a word I used in the previous paragraph: "perceived". Perceptions, as we all know, are not the same thing as reality. More than once, I have had non-cyclists berate me and other cyclists because of inaccurate notions about us.
I think now of a time when, on a narrow Brooklyn street, a man driving just behind me wanted to park in a space I was passing at that moment. He leaned on his horn; I glanced back at him and lipped, "Excuse me." Then he let out a stream of profanities and what sounded like a threat.
I turned back and said, "Excuse me, sir?"
Then he went into a rant about how careless cyclists are because we "get to use the same streets but don't have to pay for them." I asked him to explain himself. "I have to pay all sorts of taxes to maintain these streets."
"I do, too. We all do, whether or not we drive. All of that is funded from what's deducted from our paychecks--or what you pay if you're an independent business owner."
He had the frustrated look of someone whose anger had, against his will, been defused. "Yeah, but I'm still paying more taxes than you."
"Probably not. Do you have kids? A mortgage? Any loans?"
He looked confused.
"I am a single renter. And I can't claim the deductions that some people claim. I don't get those big refunds I hear about from other people--if I get a refund at all."
He actually seemed to be listening to me. "The only tax that you pay, and I don't, is for the gas in your car. But even there, I pay, too, because the price of gas is subsidized. Why do you think we don't pay 10 dollars a gallon, like they do in France and Germany?"
From there, our exchange became less acrimonious, and I wished him well.
I thought about that encounter, again, when I came across a letter to the editor containing the "If they want to use our roads, let them pay for it!" canard. It's amazing how the misconception that we don't pay our "fair share" still exists.
What bothered me almost as much is the editor's response: That Oregon cyclists are indeed paying their share with the bicycle tax that was imposed two years ago.
What was that about two wrongs not making a right?
