> Bikes aren't automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn't be sharing the road with cars.

While I understand the sentiment you need to understand that cyclists are put in a pretty awkward legal situation themselves. They exist in a no-mans-land between pedestrians and vehicles.

Sidewalks are often too narrow, too close to blind corners, etc for safety. They're often VERY bumpy. At 2mph a sidewalk is fine, but at 15mph it tries to shake your bicycle apart. Pedestrians don't expect cyclists on the sidewalk and that can make for horrific collisions.

In the street cyclists get no respect. Cars cut cyclists off making right turns regularly. "Dooring" is a very real phenomena that can put people in the hospital. Cyclists regularly get killed by cars and the drivers suffer no real consequences.

Here's a NYT article on precisely this subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to...

> pure safety concerns for the biker (who I as the automobile driver am responsible for in the case of an accident)

As you can see from the NYT article that's often not true at all. The police tend to look at cyclists the way you do, and many times don't find fault with drivers even if cyclists are KILLED much less injured or have their bikes destroyed.

> generally shitty entitled attitude lots of bike riders seem to have (probably earned from dealing with irritated drivers like me)

A lot of the shitty attitude has to do with a constant fear of death. Further cyclists are definitely treated as second class citizens on the road, despite being required to obey all traffic laws however ill-suited they are for pedal powered vehicles.

But if the law applies evenly to cars and bikes then cyclists have every right their three feet of roadway and possibly the WHOLE lane (depending on how wide the shoulder is and the lanes are) without fearing for their lives. But often that's not the case. It makes "sharing the road" a very adversarial experience and worse is that cyclists can't see who's about to run them over, honk at them, swerve far closer than legal, throw something, etc because the cars are usually going faster than the cyclist.

The idea that bike riders have shitty attitudes and drivers do not is a non-starter. The problem -- as you've stated -- is best solved by making dedicated room for cyclists rather than expecting everyone to just magically get along in situation which rewards neither for doing so.