To be honest I felt safer riding the bike than being a passenger in the taxi to and from work each day. At least with the bike I KNOW the cars will pull out in front of me (unlike Australia where it's a bit random) and that they mostly all blast the horn when they're approaching from behind so you know they're coming. Also, there are cycle lanes all over Beijing that are a full car width wide so often you're not too worried about the cars. The pedestrians are cyclist aware too which helps a lot.
The car drivers are crazy (stating the obvious I guess). For those who haven't been here, it's the accepted norm to do the equivalent of making a left turn without even looking to see whether there's traffic coming from the right (plenty of horn blowing and swerving traffic here). Blinkers, staying within your own lane, changing lanes safely (and I'm talking freeway speeds here
), stopping at red lights when you're turning left and waiting for pedestrians/cyclists to clear pedestrian crossings (even when you've got a red light) are all rarely taken options.
You know what though, as bizzare as it sounds, it actually seems to work pretty well.
