Hi All,
There have been a few threads lately that have gone into the topic of
how motorsist attitudes and road infrastructure play into bicycle
safety.
I just returned from a 3 day trip to Italy. I visited quite a bit of
rural and semi-urban areas.
I don't know what the bicycle accident statistics are for Italy, but
whatever they are they are certainly in spite of any infrastructure
well suited for bikes. In terms of infrastructure, you almost couldn't
come up with a worse set of conditions. Roads with huge variation in
width, markings, almost always no shoulder at all, poor visibility, no
bike lanes, etc. Add to that a driving style that is is on average
pretty aggresive, and in some case psychotic and you would think the
riding would be miserable. But quite to the contrary. This IMO goes to
show that driver attitude is by far the most important factor in
making cycling at least seem safe.
I saw huge numbers of cyclists, several times in groups of 15+. I saw
only 2 "normal" people on bikes, everyone else was a racer type. Even
on heavily traveled roads in rush hour, more than once I saw 2
cyclists riding side by side having a chat and nobody was stressed out
about it. The motorsists just drove around. No big deal.
Joseph