one of the smarter bits of advice i've heard over the years goes like this: "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
i've been thinking a lot about this while cycling through the city streets lately, and i think it bares keeping in mind.
one thing i realized is that i usually just assume people driving cars who do something dangerous to me were just not paying attention or didn't see me or whatever. but SUVs and pickups, i assume they're just jerks. i figured it was because jerks gravitate toward SUVs and pickups that the majority of my "incidents" on the road involve them.
i've sort of changed my views a bit, and decided that no, they're just as dumb as car-drivers, but they have a harder time gauging how close to me they are because they're so big.
there's a lot of hate for buses here, and i know that's because they always seem to be the most dangerous vehicles out there. perhaps it's not because the drivers want us dead, but because they're just idiots driving something bigger than they can handle?
I think you have a point here, although I'm not so sure I'd just call them idiots. The bus driver on my bus this morning was a very nice guy--as in he was actually cordial toward the passengers--but he drove the bus like it was a car. By that I mean that he didn't drive it smoothly, he hit the accelerator and brake as if the bus was able to start and stop on a dime. As a result, it was a very jerky ride due to the laws of inertia.
