Do you really feel that you responded adequately to this part: "safe (in appearence as well as reality)"? I mean - one thing is that you seem to think that "sharing the road" will be just fine under any and all circumstances, but most ordinary people seem to disaggree, as it APPEARS dangerous. Thus, your post is not at all to the point. Further, your belief that "obeying the rules of the road" IS safer that the kind of infrastructure I'm alluding to with the links, does seem to be no more that mere belief in light of all research.

To sum up: Not only will common sense tell us that sharing the road is dangerous, so does science. And this science has been applied with quite good results in the Netherlands, in Denmark, in some places in Germany and Sweden, and even in Bogota, it seems. I hope for you Americans that this body of knowledge will be used in your cities, too, both for your sake and for others'.

As I said in an earlier post: Your effort is to an extent praiseworthy, as long as it has to do with staying safe under certain given circumstaces. However, by insisting that yours is the only rational way of cycling, you thwart efforts to improve the general conditions for cyclists. You are, in a way, deeply reactionary, clinging (as I and others see it, desperately) to a mode of cycling that will in the long run be counterproductive to the safety of other cyclist, and prevent the potential cyclists, as well as society at large, from getting all the benefits of cycling in stead of driving cars.