It might be that the expectation that people use "safety features such as wearing helmets, using bicycle lights and wearing reflective jackets in the dark,” creates an atmosphere of terror and makes cycling look far more dangerous than it is.

It certainly does create the expectation that cyclists should be looking out for motorists who might hit them, rather than an insistence that motorists look out for other road users.

Cyclists in The Netherlands consciously avoid wearing conspicuity aids for the coupled reasons that such usage would allow motorists to shirk their responsibility and that any one cyclist wearing such conspicuous clothing is disadvantaging other cyclists.

It is notable the extent to which safety is seen as a collective responsibility in places such as The Netherlands where Australians obsess with making themselves safer with minimal regard to the safety of others.

In Australia cycling appears dangerous. In places such as SE Asia and northern Europe it appears safe. While it actually is safer in The Netherlands, I doubt this is the case for Saigon or other cities in Asia, particularly if you have regard for the standards of hospital care and rehabilitation if you are actually hurt.

Last year I had the pleasure of hosting a young Belgian woman in my home for four months, as she did a project at RMIT as part of her PhD research. At home she is a regular bicycle rider.

She was keen to ride from my home in East St Kilda to RMIT and I arranged for her to borrow my brother's bike and helmet.

But after a few weeks, she told me she did not want to do it any more. It was not the cars, she said, so much as the other bikes, that she found threatening and dangerous. The car drivers were usually polite and careful around bikes. But it was the men in lycra, racing each other down the bike lanes, showing no respect or consideration for other bike riders and positive disrespect for car drivers, that really put her off.

Then in August I visited my friend at her home in Mechelen in Belgium. There I could see what she meant about the difference in the culture of bike riding between Melbourne and European cities. All traffic is calmer. Mothers ride, kids ride, old people ride, businessmen ride! And no sign of lycra anywhere.

After working on a project that involves two storage facilities servicing Burwood and Strathfield, I had a long break with my family, and we went overseas – to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. It was a week’s vacation, where we went around the city and went to places of interest like the Cu Chi Tunnels. We were amazed by the mass of motorcyclists that look like a swarm of mosquitoes when there are on the road. A couple of years back, the use of helmets was not enforced. It was only recently, about 3-5 years ago, that the use of helmets was enforced. In this article, it mentions that motorcyclists, including those from Vietnam are more afraid to go on the road rather than back home and I think it is not because the roads and other drivers are far more reckless, but I think it is more like the less familiarity of the new place that makes them go less on the road.