[mjmaher]

It might seem counter-intuitive, but you are much safer riding with traffic than against it. Drivers are conditioned to look in the direction of traffic and they aren't going to expect someone coming the other way. This ends up causing a lot of accidents at intersections and parking lot entrances.

In my area, [these accidents](http://bicyclesafe.com/#wrongway) are way to common. I almost hit a biker like this the other day because they were riding against traffic past my apartment entrance.

[Here is a stack exchange question with some more stats on the topic](http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/9033/why-is-it-s...)

[bduerst]

The way it was explained to me was that drivers have a harder time estimating the speed of fast-moving objects that are differently sized than an automobile, such as bicycles and trains.

Meanwhile, bicycles that go with traffic will (relatively) approach the driver at a much slower speed, giving the driver more response time.