It's probably not anywhere near the same situation. I lived a year in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a year in Duesseldorf in Germany. I've ridden my bike from Duesseldorf to Belgium and back, including rural areas.

Where I live, the nearest bus route is 7km away, and it only goes downtown. I almost never go downtown except for concerts or sporting events, but that bus doesn't run after 6pm.

I can't bike. I've been stuck in this house since the market crash that happened in 2007-2008, I've been here 18 years and in that time I've seen two people try to commute on bikes, they both disappeared after less than a month. I hope they're alive.

I have seen more than a dozen bikes on the roadside in memorial of people who died. It's just deadly for bikes. Tons of huge trucks on narrow curvy lanes with no shoulder, just a ditch. And high speeds.