You're quite right. It is all terribly unscientific. I started the thread simply to air a thought I'd had. I was pleasantly surprised by all the opinions offered, although once I'd posted I had no right to moan even if I didn't like them.
I've raised this question also with a few friends who are keen cyclists. They all drive, so the response will be weighted. The unanimous belief was that experience in any other form of transport is of benefit in a transport system where use is shared between many vehicle types, with no exceptions. All those I asked put the experience of bicycles as an aid to good driving above experience of cars being an aid to good cycling. That opinion was well expressed on this thread too and on reflection I agree.
All those I chatted with were of the belief that drivers who failed to take bicycles into account were probably not cyclists and cyclists who behaved as if the highways were build only for them were probably not drivers. These remarks were made with a hint of a smile. Levels of wryness in the smiles varied.
All were also pedestrians and none felt there had been any collusion in any form of perceived marginalisation. That all were pedestrians will have weighted the responses.
Frankly, none understood the point, but I don't want to give the impression they're as thick as I am.![]()
Heavens preserve us from "common sense". OK, we'll start at the beginning. The hypothesis as stated in your OP is as Norm says. However, your choice of title suggests that somewhere along the line you have indeed made the same leap with which he upbraids Tillyflop and Mr Vegetables. Beyond that all we really have in support of your hypothesis is a bit of indulgence from people of a generous disposition, and complacency (see wry smiles above) on the part of a few drivers about the value of their "experience". Forgive me if I'm underwhelmed by this, but I'd love a pound for every mediocre driver who overvalues her own capabilities and has an unduly high estimation of her own roadcraft. The feminine is generic, in case you think I've missed the obvious. I can but wonder, if driving "experience" is so valuable, why people with so much of it frequently seem to have learned very little about driving itself, let alone about cycling. I put a couple of things to you as nothing more than food for thought: that the bicycle and the motor-car are so fundamentally different in conception and purpose as to render all platitudes and equivalences about "sharing" virtually meaningless; and that the nature of the motor-car tends to produce pretty much the opposite effect to the utopian mutuality you imagine.
The worst thing about cars is that they are like castles or villas by the sea: luxury goods invented for the exclusive pleasure of a very rich minority, and which in conception and nature were never intended for the people. Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don't have one. That is how in both conception and original purpose the car is a luxury good. And the essence of luxury is that it cannot be democratised. If everyone can have luxury, no one gets any advantages from it. On the contrary, everyone diddles, cheats, and frustrates everyone else, and is diddled, cheated, and frustrated in return.