Hi Craig, good to see that you are concerned about safety. Safety is probably the number issue in the cycling community. We only need to compare the stats on % commuting by city to see that, as a percentage of the community, Perth has 5 times the number of cyclist commuters than Sydney and the main reason is that Perth has better separation from traffic, in particular a better off road bike path network.
In Sydney, suitable cycling routes are often broken up with unsuitable connections between, often on busy roads. Cyclists use a variety of techniques to deal with these challenges, some simply ride on the footpath, while others will sprint along the busy road going as quickly as possible to blend in with the traffic the best they can. Two problems often encounted, is that you cannot keep as far left as you would like, due to the dangers of the 'door zone' and squeezing, where a driver squeezes their car past in the same lane, so riders will usually ride slightly out from the left, to force the motorists to change lanes to overtake and to provide the ability to move to the left in an emergency.
Bunch rides in my area in Sydney are mainly conducted on mutilane main roads, very early in the morning, with the bunch consuming the left lane, leaving motorists the ability to overtake, using the middle and right lanes and to be honest, its a case of saftey in numbers. Go down these roads during peak hour on a week day and bikes are pretty scarce.
Cheers, Michael.
