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Comment by matt_wulfeck | Hacker News Reader

I biked to work in the Bay Area for awhile. The mediterranean climate here is perfect for it.

Except people here drive like maniacs. I was tired of feeling like I was taking my life into my own hands from people regularly going 20 or 30 over the limit and treating me like a road obstacle.

Off-lane bike paths are important. Sane driving practices are also important.

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Absolutely! I'm in Chicago, where the weather is decidedly not mediterranean, but the biggest challenge for me is finding a safe enough route to ride on. The most direct route for me puts me on some pretty busy streets with a "shared lane" (i.e. an image of a bike painted on the road), but by adding about 5 minutes each way to my ride I'm able to spend 2/3s of it completely off of the streets thanks to our elevated 606 path and the lakefront trail. I often fantasize about some dystopian scenario that renders all motorized vehicles inoperable, leading to a utopian world where streets are safe to use for cyclists. Chicago gets a glimpse of such a world once a year on the "bike the drive" event where lake shore drive is closed to car traffic for a few hours and is filled with cyclists.

I'm in SoCal and even with our own bike lanes I refuse to bike to work. I'm 2 miles from work and will walk every now and then but never bike. 3 months after starting my job I was coming home from work one night I saw a guy with a mangled bike laying on the side of the road. Later I read that he died shortly after being hit. The driver of the minivan that hit him wasn't paying attention.

Maybe if they were protected. But, even then I'd still be hesitant. Drivers just don't care.

> mediterranean climate

Have you been to the med?

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