Originally Posted by cafzali

The reason this gets exacerbated is that in areas where biking is very common, it's not unusual to have a cyclist who knows someone who was killed while riding, although they can't say the same thing about driving/riding in a car. I don't know anyone who's died in a car crash or even seriously injured in one, but I know several who have been seriously injured in bike collisions with cars and in the greater NYC area, several people each year die in collisions with cars. Riders are to blame in certain cases, certainly, but the most recent incident I know involved a rider who was injured as a result of being hit from behind by a car. He was exactly where he was supposed to be and the car tried to flee the scene and would have were it not for others around.