[odiroot]

100% agreed. I used to be a driver, now I am only a pedestrian and a frequent cyclist.

My city of birth and upbringing (Warsaw, Poland) has a huge problem of people not respecting each others' space. Unfortunately a lot of bike lines are just painted on sidewalks. This (and the fact there's not enough bike lanes) encourages cyclist to just drive around pedestrians, who sometimes also tend to drift onto dedicated bike lanes.

It's terribly annoying to travel on foot during summer/autumn. You can easily get hit or at least shouted/honked at by a 'deranged' biker. Pedestrian/car and Cyclist/car relations are even more complicated.

Now living in Berlin I have to say this city has mostly solved the issue. Majority of bike lanes are a (separated) part of the car lane and cyclist are encouraged to just mix with cars on low-speed streets (<30 zones). Annoyingly enough some (not many though, mostly deliveries etc.) cyclists completely disregard the signage and still ride on the sidewalks.

Still, the roads seem to be really safe, hence most cyclists don't even wear helmets. I noticed drivers in here also pay more attention to what's happening around them. You rarely read about serious accidents involving bikes. Last one I remember it was a case of road rage where car driver beat a cyclist with a bat.

[toothbrush]

IMHO, bikes should get segregated lanes (and indeed perhaps on slower sections can share with cars, as you suggest), but cyclists should be fined Really Heavily if caught on sidewalks. Where i live now, cyclists have to do the traffic gladiator thing and muscle cars out of the way, and are usually honked at, even when on the "bike lane" (which is just a strip painted onto the car lane, woo hoo). This results in a lot of animosity between cars and bikes (and frankly, grave danger for cyclists -- we aren't 1000kg metal blocks travelling at 60+ km/h), and frequently sees cyclists picking on the next weaker party, which is pedestrians. It's a very frustrating situation, if only the smaller dead-centre-of-town areas were declared pedestrian / delivery / bike only, and the rest of the place were equipped with segregated bike lanes, it would be much safer, and pollution would be curbed, in one fell swoop. Just thinking back at the number of near-accidents (and real ones, mind you) i've had because cars just act as if bicycles are invisible, frustrates me no end. I feel the Dutch law's approach is great: treat car drivers as if they are wielding 1000kg death-machines. This is very close to the truth, and therefore the onus should be on the strongest/least endangered party to pay attention to what they're doing.