In US cities, most cyclist act like they're in a race. They must run every stop sign, charge down every hill, graze every pedestrian... in downtown Amsterdam most people were going at a leisurely pace and if you get in their way, they just ding a little bell at you.
Plus, the credibility hit that ALL cyclists take for this alone makes this not worthwhile in my view. Cyclists who respect the law like myself get blamed for the actions of bad cyclists. I've often wondered if this contributes to bad driving around cyclists, e.g., "punishment passes".
Of course it does, just like the few drivers who cavalierly pass a cyclist then make a right hand turn in front of them causing a collision or near collision contributes to cyclist animosity towards all drivers. The only thing unforgivable to most people is the proof that the people around us are humans and not robots: they make mistakes, they change their mind, they break the rules.
The point of these articles is to point out that creating the infrastructure properly eases most of the tension. Treating a bicycle as a separate form of transportation is better than treating them like a vehicle in most scenarios and making some limited exceptions for passing or driving on the sidewalk.
I'm not sure it's mainly an infrastructure problem. In my experience, US style infrastructure tends to amplify conflicts at intersections. The right hooks you mention become a lot more common, sometimes to the point where I refuse to use a particular facility solely because of this. But, it does make many newbie cyclists feel safer, which is important.
Ultimately I think we need a combination of the intersection protection measures mentioned in the article and also driver education to solve this problem.
The faster you cycle on a road the safer you feel because you're more in keeping of the pace of the traffic.
This is just a
Seems like a pretty biased sample to me. I'm a cyclist, and the vast majority of cyclists I know respect the law and common sense. Yes, there are jerks out there, but they'd most likely still be jerks if they switched to driving.
It's possible that my own sample of cycling friends is biased too, but few cyclists I see on the road are as bad as phil248 described. And the worst drivers I see on the road are considerably more dangerous than the worst cyclists, by a long shot.
Eh, I think it depends where you go in the US. When living in Portland I couldn't afford a car and so I biked exclusively, and people were super mellow. Cyclists would even gently chide other cyclists for running red lights, failing to signal, not having lights, etc.
But there's also a lot of infrastructure to support the mellowness. Dedicated cycling lanes on both sides, priority around traffic lights, under/overpasses to reduce stops, flat roads and dense urban centres (with decent public transportation for larger distances) makes it easy to get to your destination quickly without having to race or compete for space. That certainly helps.
The best way to be in traffic is to not stand out. Whether it is car, cyclist or pedestrian. Just don't bother other people.
And tourists, who wander onto the bike lanes without realizing it. Mind you there's a lot of cramped and busy areas where it's far too easy to do so.
If you visit Amsterdam, look at the ground, stay off the red pavement unless you intend to cross it, in which case you look both ways and do a firm walk across it.
(all except the graze pedestrian part, I try to avoid that).
If we had the infrastructures to protect the non-racers, you would have non-racers on the road and would feel like that the vast majority of bikers are mellow.
I'm sure in the near future he'll be donating organs to some lucky recipient.
1: http://slocyclist.com/whats-the-average-speed-of-tour-de-fra...
No, I'm going to go with "person who never travels under his own power has no concept of human speeds".