I once rented a small Kia (cheapest car I could get), drove from Houston to New Orleans and back. Apart from my eye balls popping at the sight of all the weapons on people and in shops, seeing some of the most obese people ever in my life (even in commercials it's ok to be obese), the 3x portions of all the food, and the variety of [drive-through-x for x in [ATM, pharmacy, funeral, etc]], I was in constant fear of someone not noticing my tiny Kia and driving over me.

I was stopped by police while taking a walk and shouted at and treated like a criminal when walking in to a Wendy's drive through (even though only the drive through was open at that hour!) But, other than that, the people were incredibly kind! The culture shock though... It is very hard to imagine if you've never been there. I think as someone from western Europe I have more in common with people from Thailand.

Cars are really a must-have in the US, biking is just a hobby. It's more the other way around here. Everybody is a "cyclist" (not even a word we use here) some of the time. It means "carists" have respect and understanding of how it is on a bike, and drive carefully around people on bikes (in general, there are always exceptions). Our infrastructure and law demands it (ie, a car-owner is always financially responsible in an accident with a pedestrian or person on a bike here, insurance for this is mandatory).

Here people in massive US sized cars are really seen as anti-social, in general I'd say. Hope it stays that way. For now I think some of those cars can't even fit into city-center parking garages here (ie [0], btw if you look around there you see separated bike lanes, crossings where pedestrians always have priority (ignoring that is instant fine), very narrow lanes for cars. Go forward in time and you see they added "statues" that look like they are about to cross the street to make drivers aware of this.)

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/tVaeHa4SNAz3iQ4x9

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sjw987 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's odd, on one side the USA is very car-centric, and western Europe is very bike centric, and then stuck in-between is the UK which has no idea which one it is.

Local governments here try to encourage cycling by putting in as many dedicated bike lanes as they can, but they never seem to get much use (where I live they're used almost exclusively by bike delivery people and a few people like myself).

The roads can be lethal and many drivers have a great deal of animosity towards cyclists (probably helped to no good degree by the likes of people like Jeremy Clarkson / Top Gear which spent a decade joking about and belittling cyclists).

	▲	elAhmo 14 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> western Europe is very bike centric Bike usage is relatively low, hardly comparable to the amount of cars. Maybe more popular than USA, but definitely far from it being bike-centric. Just a handful of cities (such as Amsterdam) have more people commuting via bicycles than cars.
	▲	rsynnott 20 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Local governments here try to encourage cycling by putting in as many dedicated bike lanes as they can, but they never seem to get much use Might be a regional or urban/rural thing? In Ireland bike lanes in central and near-central Dublin are often very heavily used these days, especially since covid (to the point that I think they're going to have to rethink traffic control for some of them), but bike lanes in outer suburbs seem to be mostly empty.
	▲	macleginn 23 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		"The roads can be lethal and many drivers have a great deal of animosity towards cyclists" --- which is why bike lanes don't get much use: sooner or later you will have to share the road with cars for a while, and I personally don't feel safe at all doing that.
	▲	teekert an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Right?! Also on many online forums. I get why and how, but it remains pretty weird to see/read from a country where everyone is "a cyclist". It just comes across as very low IQ. It's like making fun of people that have breakfast or something.

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teruakohatu 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I was stopped by police while taking a walk and shouted at and treated like a criminal when walking in to a Wendy's drive through

I live in a very bike friendly country, so culturally closer to Europe in terms of transport, but if you walked into a drive through you may well be stopped by police.

Drive throughs have long since stopped serving pedestrians.

Generally anyone trying this is inebriated.

	▲	teekert 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		As a kid I used to skate (roller blade?) through our local MC Donalds drive through, did give the personnel a little chuckle every time we did it.

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Tade0 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I think it's worth pointing out that a lot of the things you mentioned are specific to the Netherlands.

	▲	teekert an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Perhaps. But I also found it of note that while traveling Vietnam, many hotels had bikes for rent (about 2 usd a day [2010 so ymmv] or sometimes for free) to go places. And it would generally be a nice way to get around. Although the situation is very different there I have to admit.