Hi,
Having driven in many countries in Europe I would dispute the fact that Australian drivers are worse than many European ones. Accident/fatality rates, per unit of distance travelled, in some these countries are worse than Australia.
What does make a difference is the degree to which laws are enforced with those countries having presumed liability, or bias towards holding the heavier vehicle to account, making a big difference. Also safety in numbers reduces accident rates as lower speed limits (30 km/h) in residential streets encourages more cyclists to ride on those streets and drivers become more aware of the presence of cyclists.
The most successful countries integrate cyclists onto 'safe' streets, which teaches people how to ride and drivers to expect cyclists, but (and only) segregates where necessary (generally where speeds are higher and on arterial roads).
It is very possible to provide safe cycling in Australia with a proper enforcement regime (willing to take action
because a cyclist was put at risk rather than unwilling to punish a driver because the cyclist
took a risk by riding), lower speed limits and segregated links where necessary. This will increase the number of bike riders (pedestrians on bikes) to the benefit of all, however, some cyclists may not like this because it will clutter up some of the facilities with slow peds on bikes.
CKinnard said
Well may savvy inner urbanites crow about the benefits of bicycle commuting, but the reality for the median is that they live too far from cbd's for cost effective public transport, let alone pragmatic bicycle commutes
.
To far does not mean that riding a bike (as opposed to being a cyclist) does not have a role to play. Living 'to far' from the CBD, or in low density suburbs which do not sustain train stations, does not mean we are doomed to the car. Catchment densities can be increased, so that they do sustain good public transport, by substitutingg bike riding for cycling. Riding a bike at a slow 4x walking pace means that at least 4x4=16 times as many properties will be within a 10 minute walk/ride. Riding a bike as part of a multimodal commute can increase the 'effective' density of outer suburbs to the extent that they can now support rail and train stations.
At the end of the day (
A) more bikes means less cars, less cars means less congestion and safer roads, this means safer riding which means more bikes = go back to (
A)and repeat.
Bike riding in Australia can work with the proper leverage and will from government. In WA we are fortunate because our government does appear to be 'getting it'.
The Netherlands started from the same car driven base that Australia has now - look what they have done. In many cases there too the outer suburbs are too far to commute by bike (alone) but 'bike to rail to work' works well. A typical train station car park, for 400 single occupancy cars, can be repurposed to accomodate 5,000 single occupancy bikes.