The problem in my city is that the people at fault are generally:
- Idiots on new-age vehicles (especially those one-wheeled things)
- Idiots who park on the stop on the side of the road with emergency blinkers (hi, Amazon delivery drivers)
- Idiots who stop in the middle of an intersection
All of those cause unsafe driving, as other drivers are forced to maneuver around things the roads and traffic weren't designed for.
My goal isn't to assign blame, though. My goal is to make sure as few people die as possible. Personally, I'd also usually rather risk death than a crippling injury. If I die, that sucks. If I'm a quadriplegic for the rest of my life, that sounds a lot worse. I'm not sure why you're okay with cyclists dying.
As points of data:
- I once crashed a car on a highway. My only accident, in many years of driving. The car was totaled. No one was injured. It was pretty amazing.
- I've injured myself seriously on bicycles several times, despite far fewer miles commuted and being much more careful. Only one of those involved a car. One involved a pothole, and the most serious one, a hidden metal plate.
Having an engineered metal cage around you does wonders for safety.
I stopped seriously commuting on my bicycle when I had a child. The risk wasn't worth it. I'd start again if the city were designed for it, but I'd want dedicated bicycle arteries -- bikeways without cars, pedestrians, or idiots on one-wheels. I'd be okay with ebikes and scooters IF there were some ways to keep idiots off (traffic enforcement, licensing, or whatever). In the city I was born, somehow people seem able to handle ebikes, scooters, and mopeds safely. In the city I live in, they somehow can't.