Lawlessness due to lack of infrastructure and Sharrows work

Washcycle has a couple of good points:

The DCist article has a comment with an excellent point I’ve not heard raised before “It’s the absence of infrastructure that creates the perception of
lawlessness. The problem is, unlike yourself, the overwhelming majority
of people do not perceive the roads to be safe for cyclists, due to the
lack of infrastructure, causing males between the ages of 17 and 23 to
be disproportionately and overwhelmingly represented. If there is one
universality the world over is that 17 to 23 year old males are reckless
and lawless road users, be they using skateboards, bicycles or cars.
When you install infrastructure that increases the perception of road
safety, people between the ages of 7 to 70 use bicycles as transport,
and actually respect the road laws, creating a safer environment for
everybody.”
CommuterPageBlog has a post about sharrows “research by the U.S. Department of
Transportation revealed that sharrows significantly increase the passing space between
motor vehicles and bicyclists and reduce improper bicycle behavior, such as
riding on the sidewalk or riding the wrong way on a street.