A lot of things get magnified due to the proliferation of information on the web. So people who are looking into riding do a quick Google search and find articles about the handful of bicycle fatalities around the country and they get worried. Then they get barraged my cybermarketing for products to allay those worries.

Then they find a bike lane in town, and hear about how unsafe some people consider them to be.

The whole thing causes too much uncertainty in new riders.

When I got back on my bike in 2008 after a long time away, I didn't even think about any of that stuff. I didn't even think to look online for information. Now it's the first thing you do when you start something new.