my knee-jerk reaction is: and because streets aren't just for cars!
But more pragmatically, vehicular cycling is often the best choice because of visibility and predictability, and also as regards driver awareness and expectation: it at least seems safer if drivers are accustomed to sharing the road than if they never have to.
Definitely. Brussels was designed for cars (and Belgium is very car-centric in many ways) but it's got much better for cycling in the ~15 years I've been here, thanks to a mixture of incremental improvements and political "big pushes".
Upping the sensitivity and switching to the soft rim cap makes a huge difference. We have ThinkPads at work and I'm not surprised most of my colleagues don't like the Trackpoint with its default cap and settings; Lenovo aren't doing it and favours.
So "tightening the DUI laws" here means giving cops greater latitude to charge people below the legal limit - as opposed to, e.g. increasing the penalties for people who are above it?
Here (well, UK and Belgium) I think the police would not charge you if you passed a test (but they might several times).
One explanation I was given for comparatively poor & worsening road safety in the US was the lack of serious penalties for drunk and dangerous driving.
What would make it a frivolous charge? I mean, if the test is reasonably reliable and shows the driver had more than the legal limit of alcohol in their blood, What's there to contest?
Mandatory helmet laws for cyclists are a red herring intended to shift blame and attention onto cyclists' behaviour rather than address the real problems, namely: bad infrastructure, cars, and drivers. As long as policymakers do nothing to counteract the current trend of cars that are increasingly dangerous to other road users and that at the same time encourage / tolerate inattentive drivers, it would simply be in bad faith to adopt a policy that would impose legal penalties on the victims of this trend.
A better way to make cyclists and pedestrians safer would be more stringent laws against dangerous car designs, and some enforcement of the existing laws. We are starting to see US-style monster pickups and SUVs here in Belgium and they are a fucking abomination - far too large for city streets - and their extra weight and height plus reduced visibility make them dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists.