This defeatist attitude is a major contributor to the sorry state of bicycle infrastructure in most of North America. I respectfully suggest that if you want to see it improve, it's entirely counterproductive demonize cyclists as reckless hooligans putting their lives on the line for nothing, and instead put the blame where it needs to be: Politicians and drivers.

This statement sort of requires an asterisk in that it's entirely dependent on your schedule, city, your location within it and your capacity for recognizing and taking risk.

Some people for example would say the same things of motorcycles, yet there is no shortage of people who recognize and take the risk to ride out there.

Also, many cities have a plethora of bike paths that network through them and lanes set aside for bikes. That combined with high-visibility gear and recognizing those pain points to avoid or tread carefully mitigates a great amount of the risk you take.

It's a factor to weigh in for sure, but it's not as bad as you make it out to be. Anecdotally that's a shame about your co-workers, but for example there are dozens of people who bike to work everyday at my work and none of them have died in the ten years I've been here.

So I suppose you should really phrase that as a factor to consider rather than a blanket statement that it's not worth the risk in the U.S.

>Some people for example would say the same things of motorcycles, yet there is no shortage of people who recognize and take the risk to ride out there.

This is not an equivalent analogy there are no health benefits from motorcycles, people do it purely for fun. If you are getting someone sort of thrill biking around heavy vehicles then, by all means, go for it .

I am talking about people choosing biking for their supposed health benefits.

> many cities have a plethora of bike paths that network through them and lanes set aside for bikes. That combined with high-visibility gear and recognizing those pain points to avoid or tread carefully mitigates a great amount of the risk you take.

I only have experience with chicago lanes. There are very few of them and almost none of them are actually protected from the traffic. For example, a car making a right turn has no option but to go into the bike lane, almost no one is trained to watch out for bikes and cars mirrors are not designed to accommodate bikers. There are many many issues like this.

But as you said it would be much safer if bikers knew what they were doing but biking on street requires no tests, anyone with a bike can get on the streets with 18 wheelers. Some of these people have never driven a car and are just guessing what needs to be done. They don't think general traffic rules apply to them, like zooming past stop signs , running red lights ect. I see this on a daily basis.

Why do we allow this to happen is beyond me.

That's a fair point; I wonder if some kind of licensing program or systematic training* for bicyclists would be beneficial.

Maybe incentivize it with a tax break or something if you take the (paid) training every x years and bike to work at least x days a month on average.

* I'll draw another inappropriate comparison here and say similar to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation that designs the cirriculum for virtually all motorcycle training

drunk drivers need not be involved in order for urban cycling to be dangerous...it is just dangerous, period. It's chaos....and gravity and physics mean that sooner or later the cyclist will have an accident.

Yes agreed. people who are downvoting my comment haven't tried making a simple yield left turn on busy street on a bike.

I mostly ride to work across the CBD in my city (Perth, Western Australia).

Three times I have been knocked off my bike by cars, with many more near misses. Luckily the worst outcome was one day off work and a couple of weeks off the bike.

Perth has a car culture and urban sprawl similar in some ways to Los Angeles. Most people drive to work if they can. The majority of cars on the road during peak hour have only the driver inside (ie single occupant). Traffic congestion on the major arteries is a problem.

Encouraging more people to ride bikes to work is one way to lessen traffic and parking problems. It also reduces environmental impact and as the article states - has health benefits. The state government here also encourages cycling and other car alternatives for commuting for these reasons.

My regular year-round cycle commuting has inspired a some of my colleagues to try it over driving and/or public transport (note this is not through any pro-active evangelizing on my behalf). A few of them have converted to semi-regular cycle commuters. Other colleagues who can't convert to cycle commuting due to distance, time or family constraints have been inspired to restart recreational cycling.

So while I am painfully aware of the risks of cycle commuting I also believe that leading by example is a powerful thing.

The more cyclists on the road, the more accustomed car drivers become to their presence which should lead to safer driving behaviors.

However, if no one is willing to take the risk of cycling on the road, how will it ever get wider adoption and acceptance?

People who get on the road go through govt regulated test to certify them to be capable of using the road and know what are the rules they are supposed to follow.

I've seen people who have never driving a vehicle buy a bike from walmart and ride next to 18 wheelers on the road.

That to me is insanity , why are people supporting this?

I see motorists conflate irresponsible cyclists with all cyclists all the time and this argument(? if it is one, I'm not sure what the argument is) doesn't hold any water.

Also, The next time you are on the road take a look around you and note how many drivers are distracted by their mobile devices. Just because the motorist has gone through government regulated tests doesn't mean that they are obeying the law.

If you're not comfortable with that, you just post up on the other side of the light and then resume when traffic flows in that direction.

You are being down voted because you assume if you don't cycle to work, you can't cycle at all, and if you cycle, you must always mix with traffic.

>You are being down voted because you assume if you don't cycle to work, you can't cycle at all

Well the topic at hand is 'Cycling to work'

you ended your post with going to the gym, implying a fitness strategy that excludes cycling entirely due to cons associated with bicycle commuting