The bike lanes that now exist probably make things safer overall but there's a lot of dangerous behavior out there on the part of many types of infrastructure users (including cars as well).
The bike lanes that now exist probably make things safer overall but there's a lot of dangerous behavior out there on the part of many types of infrastructure users (including cars as well).
There's a certain "vicious cycle" element to this. If bicycling generally appears unsafe, then mostly (over)confident, risk-tolerant people will do it. Those are the same people who are comfortable getting away with unwise things like running stoplights the wrong way at dusk on their no-brakes fixie with a single tiny red blinkie mounted high on their messenger bag. ;)
It's also tied into a common argument against biking infrastructure: "Why would we build this? There aren't any people biking now." Chicken-egg, but there are many people who won't bike if it seems unsafe. And those people have a good chance of behaving more sensibly when they are convinced to ride.