Cycling is cheap, often faster than driving (in my city), healthy, less noisy, creates vastly less pollution, less dangerous to pedastrians... And I'd guess that about 95% of drivers that I come across are respectful of the danger they present - overtaking with enough space, and not at too high a speed (my city doesn't have great bike lanes). Unfortunately, a typical journey involves passing more than 20 cars, which…
>Unfortunately, a typical journey involves passing more than 20 cars, which means experiencing at least 1 very close pass Unfortunately I see it the other way. Asa rule I give cyclists plenty of space when overtaking, even happily sitting behind a slow cyclist on a 60Mph road for 30 seconds to a minute in order to find a safe passing spot. However the same courtesy is not paid the other way. When in multi lane traffi…
Second, while room should be given by both parties, the consequences for failure are far different between the two scenarios. In the scenario where the car driver is passing dangerously close, you have a multi-thousand pound vehicle potentially hitting an unprotected body. Even if the initial impact doesn't cause great harm to the person, there's a lot of potential for knocking the bike and person over and then causing them to get run over by the initial vehicle's wheels or into the path of a second vehicle nearby. Who loses most in this situation? The person riding the bike.
In the scenario where the person on the bike passes too closely and hits the stationary car, there's just a lot less energy and moving mass involved. The potential for serious injury is greatly reduced. And perhaps most importantly, the party suffering the greatest potential for serious injury is the one that caused the situation.
I don't mean to dismiss the potential for damage to the car (mirrors knocked off, scratches, etc) as that's a real thing which should be avoided. But there's also a VERY big difference between property damage and bodily damage.