Also, I don't know any place where vehicular cycling is particularly common. It seems to be enthusiastically practiced by a relatively small group of people. As I said, though, those people are the safest cyclists I know. There's no evidence that their practices are detrimental to safety best I can tell. Their practices might seem counterintuitive, but they have good reasons for what they do.
> Admittedly, to me it seems obvious that cars being separate from bikes will be safer for people on bikes than sharing the space. Just like how everyone would uncritically accept that walking on sidewalks is safer than walking in car lanes, because it just seems really obvious.
Again, what seems obvious is not necessarily true. I recommend that you look at websites like this one: http://bicyclesafe.com/
The author of that site seems to be neither in favor of pure vehicular cycling or infrastructure, though I think he's more in favor of infrastructure than I am. You can look through the most common types of crashes and see that most infrastructure does little to nothing to address those problems. And dooring, for example, is unavoidable in some infrastructure.
The infrastructure approach seems to implicitly assume that most crashes (or perhaps the most severe crashes) are due to cars rear-ending cyclists, but that's not true. The vast majority are at intersections. A lot of infrastructure I've seen amplifies the intersection risk by, for example, making cyclists less visible by placing parked cars between the main traffic lane and the bike lane. Those arrangements absolutely increase the number of conflicts at intersections. Yet people keep promoting this sort of infrastructure. (Yes, infrastructure done well can help. See other comments in this thread for more information on that.)
> you're looking at it as a personal style
No, I'm interested in my personal safety and also public policy. I'm not opposed to all bike infrastructure, just bad infrastructure, which is the vast majority of what I've seen. Given the choice between no infrastructure, bad infrastructure, and good infrastructure, my choice is good infrastructure. Most people can't tell the difference between good and bad infrastructure.
Edit: I can see from your other posts that you live in Germany. The infrastructure you see is probably biased towards good. I live in the southern US, and the infrastructure I see (if it exists) is biased towards bad. Keep this in mind.
Unfortunately most people are not going to ride when they have to mix with cars. I'm willing to do it on low speed city streets, and in unprotected bike lanes at up to highway (55MPH) speeds when I have to, but the great majority of people won't, and won't allow their kids to do it either. Protected bike lanes are the gold standard, and that's what we should be aiming for.
I'm aware of this, but the infrastructural camp tends to assume that it's obvious these effects outweigh the problems with infrastructure. I'm not certain. I think a hybrid between the vehicular and infrastructural approaches is necessary to get the benefits of both with minimal downsides. This means recognizing the problems with infrastructure and avoiding them.
This is a really interesting point. One of the things about where I live that I think I've taken for granted is that biking is pretty common. Not as common as driving, but at any given time you are very likely to see at least one bike on the road.
And, in general, cars do keep an eye out for bikes -- and they even do things like slow down to make room for bikes when the road gets narrow.
It does? I've never assumed that. When I got hit, once was being t-boned, the other was a right hook.
> I'm not opposed to all bike infrastructure, just bad infrastructure, which is the vast majority of what I've seen. Given the choice between no infrastructure, bad infrastructure, and good infrastructure, my choice is good infrastructure. Most people can't tell the difference between good and bad infrastructure.
> Edit: I can see from your other posts that you live in Germany. The infrastructure you see is probably biased towards good. I live in the southern US, and the infrastructure I see (if it exists) is biased towards bad. Keep this in mind.
I live in Germany right now, but I've lived in a handful of different parts of the US, most of which I biked in, including Alabama (not entirely by choice). You're right, biking in the South sucks. It sucks bad.
As you say, a lot of bike infrastructure is bad, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the discussion. If a city really half-asses its bus program so that it's nearly useless, we don't declare that the fault of public transportation generally. You get what you pay for and all.
I'm not anti-infrastructure. I'd consider myself about 1/2 vehicular, 1/2 infrastructural. (See my other posts in this thread; I've repeated this several times now.) Both sides have good points. The problem is that most infrastructure in the US is bad, often considerably worse than no infrastructure at all.
Well, for biking numbers, there are infrastructure-oriented places like the Netherlands with very high rates of biking. I'm not aware of anywhere comparable for vehicular cycling, at least in the developed world.
> Do you have evidence for this or is it just an assertion?
Places where vehicular cycling is more common like the US seem to have worse safety numbers. I think you're right though that there aren't any in-depth studies, or at least I haven't seen them.
Admittedly, to me it seems obvious that cars being separate from bikes will be safer for people on bikes than sharing the space. Just like how everyone would uncritically accept that walking on sidewalks is safer than walking in car lanes, because it just seems really obvious.
Granted, you're looking at it as a personal style, whereas I'm looking at it in terms of public policy: which one is safer for cyclists as a whole, which one encourages more cycling. If you're saying, "well vehicular cycling policy is great except for that part where it only works for a tiny % of the populace" then that by itself means it's kind of useless.