The more interesting stats for cycling would be deaths per mile for several different types of riding. A commuter can design a low risk route and manage their own behavior, both things that have an impact on safety.

Yeah, how many delivery salmon are injured every year? Like, they're riding basically a motorcycle, usually without lights, against traffic.

The reason I chose cycling injuries is because a cycling injury is usually quite serious and debilitating- aka, it might as well be a death, because you will not be able to live life quite the same after.

Furthermore, 49,000 cycling injuries is very high when you consider that only a few percent of the US commute by bike (a few million people), but hundreds of millions of people drive by car!

> The reason I chose cycling injuries is because a cycling injury is usually quite serious and debilitating

Is it? When I think of cycling injuries, I typically think of broken arms, wrists, etc. No fun at all, but unless it's a particularly bad break, it only means being pretty severely inconvenienced until you heal. (This is assuming you wear a helmet, of course - brain trauma is no fun no matter what the cause.)

I suppose it's possible that x% of the injuries are not a big deal, but even just broken bones open the door to chronic disease (arthritis, nerve impingement) and potential disability.

Traveling by car can also put you at risk of permanent disability, but generally you are more protected- what would kill you on a bike would disable you in a car, and what would disable you on a bike would merely inconvenience you in a car

I really love my bike, and my go kart, and motorcycle, and all of the lightweight forms of transportation I have that pose very little danger to me on a flat, clear road

But I really think that even with most drivers being alert, the physics of sharing the road are very broken

It's either ban cars, make bike only highways, or tell riders to ride at their own risk and pray for an insurance claim