Picture ain’t mine but in the last decade in my country, there’s more and more motorcycles than ever before, mostly because they’re cheap and plentiful, and while they supposedly level the playing field in terms of private vehicle ownership, they also affect other people like cyclists.
Ok i live in a country where around 50% of all registered vehicles are motorcycles, and it’s as chaotic as Jason Slaughter highlighted in one of his video. It’s the most hated mode of transport by basically everyone, even motorcyclist, simply because it attract the kind of person that will be reckless regardless. It’s being parked everywhere, even the walkway and blocking people’s path, though not fully their fault for the lack of motorbike parking spot.
BUT, the hate i feels like is most of the time unjustified. While it’s true that some will ride dangerously as this country allow lane splitting(ride between car with speed over 30kmph) and i’ve seen more motorcyclist running red light more than car do, most people i see riding a motorcycle will follow rule and ride defensively as possible, because all they want to do is get to their destination safely. It’s also a preferred vehicle here because you’re allow to filter to the front of the traffic junction, and no issue navigating traffic jam.
But one thing i can be sure is, motorcycle culture and bicycle culture does not mix well. The reason people doesn’t ride their bike to work as much here is because motorcycle have the same advantage of bicycle but the speed of a car, and people will just ride their bike for leisure. And it’s also hard to justify having a bike path to the public if the motorcycle culture is this strong, it will likely left unused and people will just ask it to change into motorcycle lane afterward(it happened recently). If you’re bicycle advocate in one of such country, you will have a really tough battle ahead.
A small percentage of humans are knobs, so if you split into drivers, bikers, cyclists and pedestrians, then within each one there are knobs. I regularly see all go through red lights, go the wrong way up a road, don’t give way etc.
The impact of these are different though. Drivers kill, and can kill other drivers and anyone else on the road. Motorcycles can kill cyclists and pedestrians but are more likely to be killed themselves by drivers. Cyclists can hurt and even kill pedestrians (although lower chance), and can be killed by drivers and bikers. Pedestrians are just exposed as fuck.
We should design the roads to reflect that - pedestrians first, [transit maybe here?] cyclists, bikers, then drivers.
I think bikers should be factored in and in some cases fuckcars includes them as victims of car brained culture (and acknowledge they are smaller, less harmful up the environment etc) and in some cases say fuckbikes (they can kill you and do emit green house gases).