The smaller cities in Finland tend to have dedicated bike/pedestrian paths separated from roads, with almost every school age child bicycling or walking to school.

The only way I can understand someone complaining about the lack of such options in Northern Europe is that they haven't lived elsewhere, and seen how bad it could be.

My favorite personal US-is-for-cars anecdote: We once got into cars just to drive across the road, as there was no pedestrian crossing and six lanes of traffic.