Most reasons to not cycle are not inherent to the bike. The same cannot be said about cars, they are inherently dangerous to all road users (and as a society we paper this over to make driving feel way safer than it actually is)
A recent study in my city indicates that people don't take bikes mostly because they perceive them as unsafe to ride in traffic. Or at least that's their excuse. :)
wait. you cycle because driving is too risky? are you statistically less likely to get injured while cycling, or is it mainly about caring for not injuring others?
If you run the numbers, getting hit by any car while riding a bike carries with it a fair probability of death or lifelong injury. The forces involved do not lie, and your feelings of getting hit by a compact car and surviving are foolish at best.
Bikes simply are not safe when occupying the same space as a vehicle. The solution is not 'make vehicles that can't kill cyclists', the solution is to prevent these two modes of transportation from operating in the same space.
Banning bikes from roadways for the safety of cyclists is entirely logical. Building cycle paths separate from roadways is entirely logical. Anything outside of that is an experiment we already have data for, and it means more dead cyclists regardless of how you go about it which to any reasonable person is not an acceptable outcome.
Maybe people would want to use bikes if the opportunity existed. I don’t bike because it doesn’t feel safe next to cars, but I also don’t drive because I know it isn’t safe.
Roads are dangerous by their nature and bicycles are unpredictable and unprotected modes of transport to use. It is entirely understandable that there will be a large amount of lethal accidents involving cyclists, particularly on roads which aren't designed to accommodate them safely.
Choosing to cycle subsequently bears significant risk and those who choose to do it surely carry a large proportion of the responsibility if they get injured, not mention the risks they pose to drivers by causing traffic to change speed and be forced to overtake.
I understand cycling where it is safe to but am not convinced cycling on major roads is worth it.
I'll note safety of cycling is a big concern of mine, and by far the biggest reason I do not generally bicycle to commute, and only do it for leisure off roads whenever possible.
Cycling is roughly 2x as dangerous as driving (1) to the person themselves per mile travelled and motorcycling is 35 times as dangerous (2).
Electric bikes are probably somewhere in the middle.
I am hoping once we get humans off the road, cycling can be safe and I would love to cycle places.
There are so much love for bicycles. I'll offer something from the other side that people who drive. What I really find it scary is that cyclists often take the road as they wish and then block dozens of vehicles, or do something else that might seem to be quite normal from their perspective, but nevertheless is dangerous from drivers' perspective (e.g. suddenly get into road from sidewalk, are you going to cross or not?)
Basically, if the road you are cycling on are not reserved for cyclists, I'd say you are putting yourself and other people in risk. My city has a lot of cycling lanes but unfortunately not every road has one.
They aren’t a net positive for everyone when valuable transportation lanes are lost for bicycles. I’m not taking my four kids to the doctor on a bicycle. In an emergency, I’m not going to pedal my way to the emergency room. When it’s pouring rain, or baking hot, I’m not going to ride a bicycle. If I’m buying groceries for a family of six, I’m not going to carry a week’s worth of groceries in a backpack. A bicycle trip of 15 miles takes a whole lot longer than a car trip of the same distance. How about transporting young babies on a bike? Bikes are far more unsafe than cars.
Saying that cycling is dangerous because you are putting your life in the hands of car drivers isn't saying cycling is bad, it's saying cars are.
This is a very American problem. I do hate driving on roads here, but when I ride on roads in the EU (even on roads without dedicated cycling infrastructure) it's a completely different experience.
But some of us _want_ to bike and find it unnecessarily dangerous at present because of all the privately-owned vehicles driving far too fast, far too close to us. It's not the ambulances or the delivery vans that put us in danger -- there aren't enough of them to make a difference. The danger consistently comes from roads that are designed to maximize the speed and convenience of drivers rather than the safety of everybody else.
My kids' school is 3Km (2mi) from where we live, a short bike ride away. However, can my family ride to school in the morning? Not at all, it's too dangerous for kids to ride with all the traffic, but it doesn't have to be this way. With simple traffic calming measures like having narrower residential streets the cars wouldn't be driving much faster than the bikes. This isn't science-fiction, it's how things work in plenty of livable cities around the world.
So, don't drive a bike if you don't want to, but me driving my bike doesn't put you in danger, and I wish I could say the same about your car.
My biggest issue is lack of physical barriers between bicyclists and cars. I'm too afraid to take a bike because of it. I already don't trust other drivers when in a car. I also dislike it when riding a car because you frequently get weird issues around turn lanes etc that are shared with bikes that behave completely differently from cars.
Seems like much of the danger of cycling is due to being near cars though, while the reverse isn't true. Better infrastructure and less car subsidy is likely to make cycling a lot safer, whereas cars already have ~all the infrastructure and subsidy and are still enormously dangerous
Cars weigh many tons and take up an entire lane. Bicycles do not. Many thousands of deaths per year caused by automobiles in the US. For bicycles, it's vanishingly small.
I've never met a cyclist that doesn't slow, look both ways, etc, at city intersections. This demand that we come to a complete stop every 30 seconds while navigating dangerous city roads could only come from those who do not use this vastly safer and greener form of transportation.
And this is why I don't ride a bicycle. Despite the health and cost savings benefits, it just isn't worth putting myself mere feet from all the crazy drivers with no concern for my safety.
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