While I think cycling is great - environmentally, for health, apparently for mental health - bikes and cars don't mix unless they are going approx. the same speed in 1-2 lanes.

Driving a car, bicycles are hard to see - I wouldn't be surprised if visibility in cars is specified to be sufficient to see other cars. Bicycles appear out of nowhere and disappear. Also, cyclists - no better or worse than their automobile counterparts - don't always drive well, and they do things that cars don't such as weaving through small spaces between cars; running lights as if they are pedestrians, but on the road; appearing from sidewalks and other places - really anyplace. I don't object to creative driving - as I said, (city) drivers aren't much different in their way - but it makes bikes unpredictable and hard to see. Then there's the speed difference - bikes much slower than traffic are as dangerous as cars driving that speed (again, except I can see the cars). As long as there's one lane - and if cyclists 'own the lane' and don't let cars squeeze by - it's safe: you can see the bike; multiple lanes and the bike ends up in blind spots, weaving back and forth itself, etc.

I read that in (Belgium? The Netherlands?) the law is that if there is a small (10 km/h?) difference in speed between cars and bikes, they cannot share the road.