You need a bike friendly road network. Where I am at in suburban Illinois, I have a 45 - 55 mph lane with no shoulder and no continuous sidewalk. There is no way I'm risking life and limb to commute on that with my bike.

On the other hand there are multiple trails which I can and will use now that spring/summer is here.

I think the reluctance to use bikes for basic transport is more to do with lack of space on the road rather than theft.

Theft plays a major role when you're thinking of buying an e-bike... When you're shelling 2+kEUR and you must put the fscking lock eeeeverytime you go somewhere, pause to buy bread, or whatever, and it's the same one or 2 minutes circus (first lock, then second lock, then don't forget the computer...). It gets tiring and discouraging.

Bike trails aren't used in winter because they aren't maintained, just as roads that aren't maintained in winter aren't driven on.

Man visiting Copenhagen truly was a cultural shock, I walked past a street at midnight that may have had like 30 bikes in it without a lock. Those wouldn't last an hour without getting stolen where I'm from

I was in a suburban ward in Tokyo two years ago and it didn't look like any bikes had locks on them. They were all identical bikes with large kickstands.

They do use locks, they are just tiny things that lock the rear wheel in place. They look like the brake mechanism. For example: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/252774835823-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

side note: the ubiquitous Japanese bike style you're referring to is called "mamachari"

Good to know. Here I was believing that Japanese society was so advanced they couldn't even conceive of theft.

I did feel a major sense of safety in Tokyo, however.

Yeah. I think it's more likely to stop someone accidentally taking the wrong bike. Since they aren't secured to anything and the locks aren't beefy, defeating it would be pretty trivial.

I have a number of friends with anecdotes about forgetting items on a bus/train and the lengths to which individuals or companies will go to return them is pretty impressive.