All of those things could possibly have an effect on safety. My point is that we shouldn't confuse things that actually have an effect on safety with the idea that is the "numbers" themselves, in some intrinsic way, that cause the greater safety.

I also am not a fan of comparisons between Europe and the U.S., or Asia and the U.S. when it comes to the cycling environment. I believe that the primary difference is cultural, rather than based on what programs and infrastructure are in place. Europeans build all that fancy bike infrastructure because they have a culture that respects bicycling as a valid form of transportation, and their cycling culture was never knocked back to the degree ours was over on this side of the pond. I believe a large part of the reason for this is simply rooted in the differences in history between our countries. Places like Europe and Japan endured long periods of war and post-war deprivation and rebuilding during the period in which U.S. car culture was growing dramatically. It is CAR infrastructure and cars themselves that are expensive and unaffordable for many countries (including many Europeans during large parts of the last century), not bicycle infrastructure. So the fact that we were so rich in the U.S. in relative terms allowed our car culture to supplant bicycle and pedestrian culture to an unparalleled degree. Bike advocacy needs to reflect this cultural difference. The reason Europe has all this enviable bike infrastructure and awareness is because many places in Europe have a longer history as a real bike culture, not the other way around. In the U.S. we are having to start from a point decades behind them in most areas, because we killed our bike culture off.