What I find most compelling are the things I used to ignorantly do or could see myself doing, that turn out on detailed understanding to be potentially deadly.
With regard to vehicular cycling, there's a basic reality that its de-emphasis in favor of designated positions means that the incidents which do occur are going to tend to occur in precisely the situations VC teaches avoiding ever entering into.
On the one hand, infrastructure which popularizes cycling creates a degree of safety in numbers that make the possibility of cyclists one of more omnipresent awareness. On the other, dedicated infrastructure tends to drop the ball and leave cyclists in truly deadly (but often deceptively safe feeling) situations where it does interact with traffic at intersections in ways that preclude a protected continuation. An incident happens, people cry out for dedicated signal phases, then a year later are outraged when they get ticketed for proceeding through on a light phase where cars can turn or go straight, but bikes are required to wait.
At the end of the day, whatever the route or infrastructure or decision to use it or not use it, what really matters is understanding in full nuance the CONSEQUENCES of that choice.
And cycling forums are chock full of posts from people displaying gross ignorance of the reality of the situations they're talking about. Some of those ignorant positions are views I once held, perhaps a few are views I still do.
It's about learning.
Last edited by UniChris; 07-18-21 at 12:22 AM.