It amazes me how many bicyclists seem unable to believe that the bicycle can be a practical means of transportation in the U.S.
It can be. And riding according to the rules of the road can be practical, too-- with or without bike lanes, the fight over which is just about the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life.
I too was taught in a 'boomer' school in the 1960s (in suburban St. Louis (County)) to ride road according to the rules of the road. Contrary to what one particular well-known jack-leg 'historian' contends, I don't recall that anyone thought there was any other practical way for an adult to ride a bicycle.
I also rode a bicycle to school pretty much always-- always in the road after the age of six or so. Prior to high school (when bicycling stopped being cool and I often walked instead), I don't think I got a ride to or from school five times in my life (and most of those times I was either sick as a dog or injured).
Some of the most significant changes since the 1960s have been, as The Human Car has said (post #31), helmet usage (which has been a mixed blessing), seat belts and air bags (which have made motorists feel invincible) and road engineering like the right turn on red (which have given motorists a sense of entitlement).
The other significant thing that happened was that rules of the road bicyclists have lost their way and been seduced by an ideology that has always been doomed to failure.
Cyclists who believe in riding according to the rules of the road need to abandon the defeatist attitudes of that ideology, which holds that bicycles are impractical as a primary means of transportation in the U.S., that mass transit is impractical as well, that dedicated transportational bicyclists (which the guru of VC-ism admits he never was) are all cyclist inferiority phobic anti-motorists, and that anyone who disagrees with The Great One's crackpot social and psychological theories should be given one of the derogatory terms for other bicyclists, the coining of which seems to be the foundation of VC-ist "they're all against us" know-it-all-ism that is perhaps the worst thing that has happened to rules of the road cycling since the 1960s.
Forester-inspired VC-ism is, and has always been, an advocacy cul-de-sac. It is well past time that rules of the road bicyclists adopt a new paradigm, stop obsessing about bike lanes (and wasting whatever political capital they may have on what is surely a relatively minor issue) and, most importantly, stop worrying about the legacy of the guy with the inflated ego (and the distorted view of the world and history) who had a couple of books published and coined the term "vehicular cycling," 'cuz any way you slice it, the legacy is a mixed one.