To be clear, the “assault” you are referencing was the hit and run. Cops attributed to unsafe speed. Has absolutely nothing to do with the cooperation we’re talking about here.
Anyhow there is nuance here indeed. I have lived, biked, walked, and driven a car I own extensively in Oakland for over four years - it really is better than other places, with regard to the cooperation cited upthread! And also, I encountered my first aggressive-toward-bikes driver here the other day. Clearly, norms and safety are all relative. Oakland has room for improvement.
For example, I’ll take Oakland over adjacent Berkeley hands down. Berkeley people (drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, everyone) are bimodal (unpredictable!) between “excessively polite” and “horribly impatient”. And Berkeley cops are busy bodies, they’re pedantic with both drivers and cyclists (while Oakland cops ignore both, but have always been respectful when driving nearby to me walking or on my bike). And Berkeley’s transportation politics are far more dysfunctional than Oakland’s - see how Oakland will put a protected bike lane on San Pablo, but Berkeley refuses [1]. Stuff like this make us Oakland cyclists grateful to live in Oakland.
There’s also the median driving behavior in a geography that matters. Bay Area drivers are pretty terrible all around, and Oakland is as bad as anywhere. But that’s not specific to bikes, it harms everyone. See the Molcajete (good burritos btw) parklet that was destroyed last week [2]. Bad driving in general isn’t a bike issue, it’s an everyone issue.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oakland/comments/u3quif/oakland_bic...