When we fought this in our town (and won), we found the single most important factor for bicycle safety is more bicycles. All over the world, the more bikes, the less risk to the individual bike rider. Most of the time, helmet pushers (I do wear a helmet but not forced to) cite the terrible and retracted Seattle study about helmets. If the study groups head injuries from motorcycles in with bicycles, then they are just blowing smoke out of their ass.