traingang

Imagine you live in a carcentric society and you take a person whose only conception of cars is gokarts they rode as a child. You then hand them the keys to a sportscar and send them on their merry way on the highway. That's what it's like to have a bunch of tourists on e-bikes in a city with bike-friendly infrastructure.

From my experience in the UK, they don't have a clue how to cycle safely. No awareness of what's going on around them, weaving along and between the pavement/cycle lane/car lane at random, cycling as many abreast as can fit on the path expecting everyone else to make room for them, suddenly stopping in the middle of the path to look at their phone - basically, people who think of it as an alternative form of pedestrianism rather than controlling a moving vehicle. Things that would be inconvenient as a pedestrian become an active danger on a road or cycle path.

Tbh I'd rather they drove cars because at least then they'd understand they're in traffic and not out on a fun little adventure. They'd understand they're controlling a moving vehicle at dangerous speeds and not just doing (what they think) is an alternative to pedestrianism.
It's incredible how I'm inches away from terrible disasters every day because of some dumb american who decides to suddenly break in the middle of a bike highway or something. When they tell me to "relax" for yelling at them in reaction to them almost killing me, I should be allowed to hit them with a stick, like it used to be legal to do to swedes.
Also the roads are small and there's no parking and lots of zones where cars aren't allowed, so it would all in all mean I'd interact way less with them.