Our roads are designed for high Level Of Service (LOS) for drivers - low delay and high speeds. So long as that is the case it will remain exceptionally dangerous to ride in the U.S. The danger isn't so much the average driver but the 1-2% who pay the least attention to what they are doing because there is no reason for them to pay attention - our roads are designed and engineered to be safe for people not paying attention. Our roads are designed with wide driving lanes, wide shoulders (or in traffic engineering speak 'curb reaction distance' - for the attention impaired), wide continuous pavement, wide radius turns and many other elements that US traffic engineers believe make our roads safer for drivers who do not pay full attention.
Dutch and an increasing number of engineers across the EU believe that
you cannot control drivers attention and decisions so the roads must be designed to enforce safer driving by creating imminent risk for drivers. Narrow lanes, narrow or no shoulder, hard cement curbs, tight radius turns that cause drivers to slow, no right-on-red, no left on flashing yellow arrow, pedestrian refuges at crossings with driving lanes narrowed to 8.2' curb to curb which causes drivers to slow and pay close attention lest they damage their wheels. They don't expect people riding bicycles to share the road with inattentive drivers going 50mph in 5,000lb protective steel cages so they build safe bikeways.
The result:
Practice safe cycling all you want but until US Traffic Engineers begin designing safer road systems I don't see any change in our roads being 9x as dangerous as Dutch and other EU roads.