From Envirowiki

All the vehicular bike skills reading material is great, but limited. It will teach you how to ride in traffic, but it won't make you comfortable in traffic. Start riding as much as you can stand on streets that make you a little bit uncomfortable. Eventually you will get used to them, and you will feel comfortable.

Move up to slightly busier streets. You will get comfortable with them. Keep up this progression until you can ride anywhere.

Use bike lanes in the same way that cars use them: Whenever it is convenient. Which tells you that you don't have to share the lane when there isn't room to share.

All it takes for dangerous riding to flourish is for good push bikers to do nothing about it...

Correct behavior is crucial to safe cycling and knowing how to ride with the rest of the road traffic is a basic component to road cycling. By educating people that road cycling can be safe and that proper behavior is the key factor in riding safely, we hope to increase the number of knowledgable cyclists who, as their numbers grow, will positively effect the transportation ratios.

The "more butts on bikes" group tends to push for bike lanes, bike paths, MUPs without any attention to modifying cyclists behavior. Essentially, their attitude is that, the average cyclist is so dumb and unwilling to learn that we must provide him with separate facilities so that he can recreate with out disturbing the rightful owners of the road: motorists. Others advocate incouraging more uneducated cyclists to ride - anyway and anyhow as long as the numbers increase.