In Japan the cyclists ride on the sidewalk, and use little bells that the entire pedestrian population is conditioned to understand means "move over please, I'm coming through". I've found bike usage surprisingly high in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto compared to my experience living in/near numerous US cities (Philadelphia, Miami, St. Louis, to name a few).
Why the emphasis on bike lanes in US cities? Putting unarmored people on unpowered vehicles on the same transit medium as multi-ton high-powered enclosed vehicles with reduced visibility seems like a recipe for disaster. Hell, I rode a motorcycle for a little while here in Japan and stopped because I wasn't comfortable commuting to work and sharing the road with kei cars, let alone Cadillac Escalades or F-150s like in America.
While riding on scooters in Hanoi with my Vietnamese friends, I learned the "ways of the road" there: small things yield to big things. Dump trucks and other large commercial vehicles drive however they please. Cars get outta their way. Then cars drive however they please, and all the mopeds kinda swarm around them and move over as necessary. Smaller vehicles are more nimble and generally have better situational awareness, so they can react more easily. Operators of smaller vehicles take it upon themselves to avoid death at the hands of the larger vehicles. In a city where people on two wheels are like 95% of all street traffic....big vehicles have traffic priority. As an aside, ALL motorists strike me as hyper-alert and competent compared to the typical American. Vietnamese on Vespas avoid collisions at the last second with lightning-quick reflexes and maneuvers that tough-guy American biker dudes I know could never pull off. It's pretty amazing.
But cyclists in the States....they seem to argue "everything bigger than me on the road must adjust to accommodate me", even though they are the physically-smallest vehicles on the road, and the smallest minority of commuters. It all seems ass-backwards to me.
- what works in Japan may not work in other countries because of culture difference. Case in point, while on the bike lane (in Paris), the kind that is at the same level as the sidewalk, just next to it, even after ringing my bell like a madman, some pedestrians just won't move off of it. They just can't grasp the fact that they are on the bike lane AND that they should move out of the way.
- the "ways of the road" you talk about is a wonderful myth that everything work correctly. When you look at the stats, countries where it's more a free for all tend to have higher road death/injuries.
- cyclist everywhere wants infrastructure that protects them against 2-tons metal boxes as much as possible, and laws that respect the fact that they are NOT 2-tons metal boxes with an engine. Absent that, only a tiny minority of people will dare take a bicycle anywhere.
Unfortunately, I doubt even the Vietnamese government has accurate accident metrics per capita/per km driven to compare to other countries.
But there is no real way to "just stay out of it". The public transportation infrastructure in Hanoi is pretty damn limited. There is a subway but I've never used it. I was told the government is hesitant to expand it as heroin junkies use it to shoot up. Your best chance is with taxis/Uber/Grab, so if the car hits someone at least you aren't the person responsible.
Anecdata: there was one probably life-threatening/ending accident when I was in Hanoi around Chinese New Years (dump truck vs moped). My Vietnamese buddy said that accidents were rare, but when they occur they are almost always gruesome. This isn't counting moped-on-moped scrapes that probably just result in a few bruises. I did witness some totally reckless teens basically crash through the traffic in front of them, knocking at least one woman off of her scooter....those 2 guys promptly got their asses beat by the nearest traffic cop.
My sense was that bike transpo culture was much more robust in Osaka and Kyoto compared to Tokyo. If memory serves, there was TONS of sidewalk parking so no issues there(the subject of this post just seems inflammatory TBH) but also the sidewalks were quite a bit wider than what I'm used to in cities I've been to in the USA(like SF). Also, you don't really worry about your bike getting stolen on Osaka.
EDIT: Tokyo is ginormous though and I haven't really been on the ground in more than like 5 or so of the special wards :|
I notice this, in general, American way of life are more centered around power and freedom. Rarely I see a problem solved by the Americans as elegant. Though nothing wrong with not being elegant. Just my observation,
It seems that transport is the only area of society where we put with “might is right” over leg due legal process.
Stopping people from killing or maiming with a larger vehicle those we take a momentary dislike to is one reason why presumed liability for drivers should be a thing everywhere.
Why the emphasis on bike lanes in US cities? Putting unarmored people on unpowered vehicles on the same transit medium as multi-ton high-powered enclosed vehicles with reduced visibility seems like a recipe for disaster. Hell, I rode a motorcycle for a little while here in Japan and stopped because I wasn't comfortable commuting to work and sharing the road with kei cars, let alone Cadillac Escalades or F-150s like in America.
While riding on scooters in Hanoi with my Vietnamese friends, I learned the "ways of the road" there: small things yield to big things. Dump trucks and other large commercial vehicles drive however they please. Cars get outta their way. Then cars drive however they please, and all the mopeds kinda swarm around them and move over as necessary. Smaller vehicles are more nimble and generally have better situational awareness, so they can react more easily. Operators of smaller vehicles take it upon themselves to avoid death at the hands of the larger vehicles. In a city where people on two wheels are like 95% of all street traffic....big vehicles have traffic priority. As an aside, ALL motorists strike me as hyper-alert and competent compared to the typical American. Vietnamese on Vespas avoid collisions at the last second with lightning-quick reflexes and maneuvers that tough-guy American biker dudes I know could never pull off. It's pretty amazing.
But cyclists in the States....they seem to argue "everything bigger than me on the road must adjust to accommodate me", even though they are the physically-smallest vehicles on the road, and the smallest minority of commuters. It all seems ass-backwards to me.