GIVING BICYCLES A BIGGER SHARE OF THE ROAD HAS BACKFIRED ON VEHICLE SAFETY.

be with another bicycle than a car. Even when a motor vehicle is involved in a crash, the fault is often the cyclist’s for having run a red light, swerved into the motorist’s path, or being intoxicated: evening surveys in two Dutch city centres found 42 per cent of cyclists had blood alcohol levels that exceeded the legal limit; that rose to 68 per cent by 1 a.m.

North America, where cycling represents two per cent of road deaths, has a paucity of cycling statistics, but the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that cycling accidents have risen six per cent over the last decade, and intoxication is frequently a factor: 19 per cent of cyclists who were killed had bloodalcohol residential roads, redesigning buses to prevent cyclists from sliding underneath, and encouraging seniors — who have the highest cycling-accident rate — to use tricycles. Planners are also attempting to design bike paths to reduce the accident rate at intersections, where half of cycling accidents occur in high-cycling cities. Transport for London blames intersections for 85 per cent of cycling accidents, and is spending much of its 900-million-pound Cycling Vision budget on elaborate infrastructure to separate cyclists from motorists — a pavement-intensive vision better suited to new suburbs than the world’s magnificent, high-density cities.