Cars are 1-2 ton machines that can kill you as a cyclist or pedestrian, and humans are awful at operating them. The solution is therefore apparently to put more of those machines on the road (for self-protection) instead of reducing the risk altogether?
Possibly my most important safety measure is route choice. The streets that I ride on have very little car traffic. This includes separated bike paths, but also quiet neighborhood streets. Fortunately this is possible in the town where I live. In decades of riding, I've never experienced a collision with a car, and my near-misses have been rare.
At the same time, this is used by a lot of people as an excuse to not get a bike. In fact, it's not that dangerous as you make it out to be as is proven by statistics I guess (didn't look them up)
Bikes are definitely far more dangerous than cars. Not as much as motorcycles, but that’s scant comfort.
If you look at the absolute number of deaths, biking is reasonably safe. As I said before, cities can do a lot to make it even safer, such as good bikelanes, better traffic lights for turns, better driver's education and so on.
I also disagree with looking at absolute numbers. Of course bikes look better there because compared to cars, very few people cycle in most places. Relative numbers are the only ones that make sense. Apart from this, I drive and cycle, and it seems obvious to me that cycling is considerably more dangerous. Everyone I know who cycles accepts that it's a case of when, not if, something goes wrong, and the consequences are obviously much worse on a bike.
Given how SHIT other people are at driving, I have no desire whatsoever to be on a bicycle in front of them.