The benefits of bike lanes are clear – but Britain is still lagging behind

The Dutch learnt how to build proper cycling infrastructure in the 1970s – but here progress is slow

Stay in your lane: cyclists using a ‘superhighway’ in central London (Getty)

Bicycles, as any smug cyclist will tell you, run on fat and save you money. Cars, on the other hand, run on money and make you fat.

But for many of those not already converted to the two-wheels-good, four-wheels-bad brigade, the well-publicised benefits of cycling – for your health and your bank balance, as well as the planet – are outweighed by the inherent risks of taking to two wheels in the UK’s traffic-clogged towns and cities.

The Dutch learnt how to build proper cycling infrastructure in the 1970s after a spate of road deaths, but the UK is still struggling to prove it takes the issue of safe cycling seriously. Survey after survey shows feeling unsafe on the roads is a major deterrent for new cyclists. One recent poll found almost half of respondents would be encouraged to use their bicycle if they weren’t forced to share the road quite so intimately with cars and lorries.