Comment by Neikius
In my opinion the biggest problem is people who design roads/infrastructure don't bike. When they bike they will know what to do and how to pay attention.
So right now there is this huge push in EU to make more bike infrastructure. But people making it ... don't bike. At least not everywhere. And where they don't they will inevitably make bad bike infrastructure. This could just be corners that are too tight. Bad incline on a corner for example will not be obvious to someone who never bikes, could be just a few degrees. But on a bike it's deadly! Maybe not on dry asphalt, but bring some rain, sand, whatever and people will fall.
And then we can start talking about culture.
> Maybe not on dry asphalt, but bring some rain, sand, whatever and people will fall.
Oh man, here in Paris there's been a huge push for people to take up biking since Covid. But many bike paths are unbelievably stupid. Sure, many are too narrow, switch sides all the time, etc. I understand they had to do those in a hurry, it costs money to make them wider, etc.
But the most baffling thing is that some are actually painted with some slippery paint for some reason. I'm not talking about signs or delimiting lines, I'm talking about the underlying asphalt being fully painted, so that you're riding on the paint.
Bonus points for some of these particular paths going through a pretty pedestrian-dense area, and on the sidewalk, between parked cars on the left and pedestrians on the right who have to cross the bike path in order to reach the waiting area to cross the road. So you're very likely to have to emergency brake. I usually ride using the local bike sharing scheme, and even though those bikes are in questionable state, you're guaranteed to have the wheels skid when braking somewhat hard.