Bicycle Commuting With My Motorist Friends

In the last couple of months I just switched from doing a daily 22 kilometer round trip bicycle commute to work to living a stone’s throw from my job and cycling to work in under five minutes. However, after a year and a quarter of long distance urban bike commuting in Ireland, I have some opinions on the subject that I feel the need to share.

The first thing I have to say is that it’s not an activity I can easily recommend. I had no other option really and while I love cycling and wish I lived in a world where urban bicycle commuting was a safe option I have to conclude that by and large it isn’t. I say this not because of the volume of the traffic on Irish roads (that actually makes it safer due to the slowdown it causes) but because of the mindset and general aggression of motorists towards cyclists.

$100 A Barrel: Why I don’t drive, and why no one else will soon

Occasionally people ask me why I don’t drive, especially here in Galway where I think most people are given cars instead of legs at birth.

Growing up not far from inner city of Dublin and living there most of my life I never really needed a car. My father never drove and my mother tried for a while but gave up after two cars in a row were stolen. Most of my friends families didn’t have cars either and all my friends and I walked, cycled and used buses without thought, practically no one in my school was dropped off in a car. Effectively I grew up in a culture that was not car dependent, all the facilities we needed to live were easily accessible without a car. Thats not to say Dublin is car free utopia, it’s not, especially so in recent years with American style suburban sprawl and population growth with little or no matching investment in public transport. Dublin has become a car culture but due to its density and the legacy of having some sort of bus system its still possible to live there without a car if you live somewhere within the city proper rather than the sprawl into Meath and Kildare. More importantly in a way car culture hasn’t fully infected the minds of a lot of people there, there are still lots of younger people who don’t have cars and don’t consider it to be a extra limb.