Street legal ebikes don't let you go any faster than a fit cyclist. They just make hills, taking off, and long rides easier.

a 60 y/o hearing impaired unexperienced cyclist riding as fast as a fit experienced cyclist - good look with that. maybe you want to overthink your argument.

The same 60 yo might use a car instead, and drive multiples of 25kph. And energy is proportional to the square of the speed, so typical ebike will have about an order of magnitude less energy than the typical car, with also an order of magnitude less mass.

Nassim Taleb made some pretty interesting points on the magnitude of a risk vs its probability. If you get a shower of pebbles thrown on your head, you'll be sore at worst. If you get the same mass thrown as one big rock... you're dead.

Same with bikes. You're much more likely to fall (you really are). But chances are, you'll not even ruin your clothes when you do, and the risk of serious injury, while of course present, is much much smaller.

or even fly a plane? or operate a nuclear plant?

we're talking here about cycling on bicycle lanes.

Most people don't fly planes to go buy cigarettes. Are you sure you're ok? I'd suggest a snickers :)