Originally Posted by
hagen2456
"...about 1970..." - you do realize, don't you, that at the same era, the American public was taking to the street in large numbers to demonstrate against the Vietnam War, pollution, civil rights, etc., just like the Europeans? And that it coincided with the so-called "bike boom"? In Europe, the sane reaction to the motor lobby was, of course, cyclists demonstrations for safe bike infrastructure. You had all the political basis one could wish for to do the same, but chose the principled, quixotic course of "equal right to the lane" - well knowing that the number of cyclist fatalities under such conditions is horrible. The only excuse I can think of is that "equal rights" sounds nice, and that it was used succesfully by the civil rights movement.
As I've hinted before, America seems to be seeing a second "bike boom", which would give you another opportunity to mobilize cyclists for a sane course. Instead of doing that, you cling to the "equal rights" mantra, while telling everybody that things can't be changed.
Hagen, your ignorance of the history of American bicycling affairs leads you to write nonsense. You claim that the same political conditions that allowed some Europeans to demonstrate for, and to obtain, safe bike infrastructure over the opposition of the motor lobby, existed in America. It is correct that in the 1960s American cycling grew. However, the American reaction to that was the creation, by the motoring establishment, of a bikeway system designed to keep cyclists out of the way of motorists in order to protect and promote the convenience of motoring. And, read carefully Hagen, the only Americans to oppose this restriction of cycling to promote the convenience of motoring, were the few well-informed adult cyclists. In short, everyone in America, except the few actually cycling according to law, thought it right and proper that cyclists be shoved to the side of the roadway, or off it if possible, to make motoring more convenient. When those who created this system discovered that their restrictive and discriminatory scheme had some opposition, and that it came from cyclists, they were first astonished and then nasty. I was there, Hagen, talking to them frequently; I know what happened, and you, Hagen, don't.
Furthermore, when the first and second statistical studies of car-bike collisions were performed (the Cross Santa Barbara study and then the Cross national sample study), they completely disproved the safety superstitions on which the motorists relied for their public support. But, of course, the actual facts did not deter the motorists from continuing on their anti-cycling program.
After the motorists' anti-cyclist bikeway program was launched, the anti-motoring environmentalists jumped on the motorists' anti-cycling-motivated bandwagon. The anti-motorists preferred the support of the ignorant and superstitious millions to the knowledge of those who had actually been cycling through all these years.
Please, Hagen, don't write about American bicycling affairs until you have learned the facts on which to base your thoughts. Writing without facts is bad enough, but writing on the basis of erroneous views on what the facts are (superstition or ideology) produces nothing but nonsense.