Originally Posted by JPprivate

If I read the OP post I assume he's talking about danger and safety in regards to his physical well being, e.g. not getting killed or seriously injured. So to compare a fender bender one had while driving and saying, 'see I never had this while cycling' is a little besides the point.

I actually looked at some stats and the chance of you getting killed while riding a bike vs driving a car are about 7 times higher (per mile travelled). That walking is more dangerous than biking is just weird, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. 4000 pedestrians getting killed vs 700 cyclists per year. That's approximately a 1-6 ratio. At least from what I see it appears that there are many more pedestrians out there compared to cyclists (certainly more than six for each cyclist).
Now if you look at how many drivers get killed a year (18,000) that seems low to the enormous volume of cars out there (even if you add passenger deaths of 7000). Seems to me the order of danger by form of transportation (and we're talking fatalities here) seems to be

-motorcycles
-bicycles
-pedestrians
-cars

As to the question what you can do, I found the following tips to be helpful:
-Ride defensively, expect the unexpected, be aware of your surroundings
-Get off the street as much as possible, try to find separated bike paths
-Choose routes where the general speed of traffic is low (residential areas etc), that will make an accident more survivable