One Bike to Work Day several years ago, a young woman I worked with in a business near the Bellingham airport, tried biking to work for the first time. She had to ride across a busy freeway overpass, and hadn't had her bike cleaned and tuned before the big day. Naturally, her chain jammed as she was crossing a freeway entrance during morning rush hour. She arrived at work a bit late and pretty shaken, saying she did not feel safe going through the freeway crossing, and would never try again. I'm not sure how she got home; probably someone with a car gave her a ride.
Some time later, she was telling me about the car arrangements in her household. She and her husband had a small two-door car, which he used for daily commuting to his office. They also had a BIG 4x4 pick-up truck. She mostly drove the truck, since she only worked part-time and sometimes needed to haul bales of hay or gear for her horse, which she boarded some place out in the county.
One day when the truck was in the shop, she said, she drove her husband to work in the small car, intending to use it for errands during the day, then pick him up after work. That afternoon, as she was approaching an intersection, an on-coming car in the left-turn lane accelerated to beat her through the intersection.
Her first thought, she said, was: "You don't do that to me, because I can kill you."
Second thought: "Oh, wait, no, I can't! I'm in the little car."
This is a good explanation for the actions and reactions of many drivers, and an illustration of the danger of assuming that other people think like me.
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