So let’s unravel the American ‘Vehicular cycling’ movement by looking at it from a Dutch perspective.
1) John Forester, while correctly identifying the need for bicyclists to behave as responsible traffic participants (in his words: ‘Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles’), made a historical error in overlooking the obvious: speed differentials and material differences between motor vehicles and bicycles make it dangerous (and impractical, but that is a minor factor in comparison to the massive safety issue) to ride a bicycle on main carriageways where traffic speed and density exceed certain thresholds.
To be fair, Mr. Forester’s ideas originated between the 1940’s and 1970’s and his ideas are best understood in the context and circumstances of his time. That is a subject that deserves a closer look, but not one that helps us solve today’s problems.
2) His ideas were subsequently used by urban planners and traffic engineers to conveniently overlook the needs of cyclists in their designs (if they considered cycling at all).
3) His (Forester’s) ideas were adopted by risk-adept sports cyclists with an unfounded sense of safety, pretty much the only category of cyclists you get when there is no adequate infrastructure for everyday cycling in the post-1970’s urban setting. These ideas allowed them to superimpose their interests on everyone else who might benefit from using the bicycle: the young, handicapped, elderly, frail, sick, parents accompanying children, those men and women riding to work and not willing to arrive all sweaty, and those unwilling to let their livelihood depend on the attentiveness of a single driver in a single moment.