Unwanted Advice
When I first started biking I didn’t know what I was doing. But I knew I was having fun. Yes, loads of fun, until…
Yes, the unsolicited advice from strangers started coming. Of course some of it was useful advice. But no matter what it was also condescending. I wished they would be quiet and let me enjoy my ride. If I wanted bike help I could turn to my bike shop or the internet. I decided then to never give advice on the road.
Now with years of experience I have tons of tips I want to share too. When I bike in spring my inner monologue goes something like this:
And when I see the newbie swerve I have to wonder:
But I just keep quiet and let everyone enjoy their ride and hope they keep riding… and maybe someday giving advice to others.
Thanks for this comic, Bikeyface. As always, you’re on the mark! Occasionally I’ve experienced people trying to offer me advice. Both incidents that really stick in my mind involve white people over age 40, and in one a man actually trailed me to say (essentially) that’d I’d gotten in his way. I’m a young, black woman on a bike in the city, so I REALLY don’t know what I’m doing, right?!
Eh. There’s some old stuff happening there -gender, race, age. I’m over it.
Barring actual danger (like hard-to-see road hazards or crazily swerving vehicles, etc.), my opinion is that it’s best to let people just go about their business. They’ll figure it out.
Just cleared my first month of daily bike commuting. This comic is a couple of months old now but I wanted to comment as I can certainly see both sides. Delivery can often make a big difference. I had a guy point out at a light that my quick release looked off on my front tire and offered to give me a hand. It turns out it was so loose my front wheel was liable to come off and I was a bit embarrassed but happy for his help. He departed with the friendly inclusive comment of ‘it’s a great way to get around, isn’t it?’
Today I had a guy pull up to me in the bike box while I was waiting for the light after crossing at the shared bike/pedestrian crossing and doing a box turn. Without so much as a smile he said “cars can’t see you if you whiz out across the road before the turn. They’re expecting pedestrian speeds.” before taking off with the green. I had made eye contact and got the nod from the driver who had been waiting to turn right and wasn’t exactly tearing across the intersection so I felt a bit … rankled by his unsolicited advice. At the same time, it’s still GOOD advice and it’s true, maybe I could go even slower on those intersections. Can’t be too careful. I spent the rest of my ride feeling both irritated but mindful of triple checking at intersections where the separated bike/mixed use path meets with pedestrian crossings. It’s funny because I know it’s the kind of things a lot of car drivers mutter (or shout) inside their cars at fellow motorists (god knows my father is fond of ‘instructing’ drivers who cannot/will never hear him when he’s behind the wheel – “Pull into the right if you’re going to turn! Use your signal! GO, it’s GREEN! Damnit, ease off the gas you’ll wear out your breaks, can’t you see there’s a red ahead?!” – which is super helpful(/s) for passengers in his car), but it’s only really on a bike that you get that kind of intimate opportunity for interaction.
The problem with “unwanted advice” is that there is no objective difference between a helpful suggestion and unwanted advice: it depends on how the *receiver* chooses to interpret it. Sure, “advice” can be said in an obnoxious or condescending way, and that’s rude. But it is also rather obnoxious for the recipient of well-intended advice to be so self-centered as to think that the observer should somehow know what the recipient knows about the condition of his/her bike, helmet, scarf, loose package, open backpack, etc., . . . especially if the recipient *appears* to that observer to be unaware of that condition.
If well-intended advice is given but not wanted, a polite recipient can simply answer: “Thanks, I know”, or just “Thanks” if he/she didn’t know but still doesn’t care.
I was turning left from the main drag onto my street. I looked at oncoming traffic. I looked at the sidewalk on the left for pedestrians ahead and behind. When it was safe to proceed, I started my turn only to suddenly come bumper to pedal (well not quite) with that dreaded species … the flying sidewalk salmon. And not some kid. He was a thirtysomething adult with a very nice bike. I uttered the word “Jackass!” and when he finished going by, I proceeded the three doors down the street to my home. AS I got out of my car, Jack was there on my front yard asking me to explain myself. Why was I such an intolerant driver. Why did I try to run him down? Maybe if I was a cyclists I would have a better understanding of the rules of the road. Etc Etc Etc. I took that as an invitation from him to offer some useful albeit unsolicited cycling advice. Starting with “Get off the sidewalk and onto the road.”
Jack left thoroughly chastized.
Or not. He road off on the sidewalk against traffic.
I must admit, I recently proffered unsolicited advice. I was walking to the coffee shop (about a half mile, not even worth opening the garage to take out the trike.) and near the post office I saw a woman barely miss being doored. She had been riding (as opposed to driving) in the traffic lane but was hugging the fog line quite unnecessarily. Almost as soon as she past a parked car, the door swung open. A difference of five feet she would have been creamed.
When I arrived at the coffee shop, fellow pouring asked when my bike was. That started a conversation that revealed her to be a board member of Bike Maryland.
I told her what I had seen. “You aren’t following your own advice. Five feet from cars. You were closer than three feet.”
“But Frederick is only two lanes.”
“I ride my trike down the center of the lane all the time and no one seems to have a problem.”
“You’re the trike?” I’m not a trike. I am a trike driver. “Well they all think it’s a wheelchair. Who wants to run overt a cripple?”