At the beginning of the current bicycle era, whose exact date is unknown, but could be approximated as sometime in the early ‘90s, bicyclists were uniformly seen as a negative factor on the roads. They were assured by bicycle advocates that this would change once more bicycles were on the roads.
Apparently, the experts thought that familiarity with something causes one to expect it. To some degree, this is true.
If something comes at you out of the blue, you react with surprise. Yet something you see everyday becomes part of the scenery, the norm.
Drivers are now more aware of the presence of bicycles on the roads. Whether they like having to share the road with bikes or not, they expect to see them.
