Or, alternatively, how oblivious drivers are to the true human cost to their mode of transportation.

Let's take New York, since it wasn't too hard to find relevant data. Data can be found at:

  http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/Statistics/2010NYSAccSummary.pdf
  http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/Statistics/2010BicycleAccSummary.pdf
  http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/Statistics/2010PedestrianAccSummary.pdf
  http://gruskinfoundation.org/pdfs/Pedestrian-Cyclist-Accidents_3-1.pdf

In 2010, there were: 311 pedestrians and 36 cyclists killed by motor vehicle drivers. On top of this, there were 16,090 pedestrians and 6,058 cyclists injured by collisions with motor vehicles. 4,898 of the injuries (of pedestrians alone) were considered moderate or serious.

On the flip side, we have the comprehensive statistics on pedestrian/cyclist injuries compiled at Hunter University. In 2010, 927 pedestrians were treated for injuries involving cyclists. Of those, 84 received inpatient treatment, indicating a moderate or severe injury. Note that they count zero deaths.

Let's compile what we've got:

  Cars : 347 deaths, 4898 moderate or severe injuries, 17,250 minor injuries
  Bikes:   0 deaths,   84 moderate or severe injuries,    843 minor injuries

Now let's involve the WHO. Long story short, cars cause over twice as many deaths due to emissions as they do from accidents. No joke. We'll make it an even 2x, just to be generous. And we won't even attempt to estimate the "injuries" in the form of asthma and bronchitis they cause.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/369169.stm

  Cars : 1,041 deaths, 4898 moderate or severe injuries, 17,250 minor injuries
  Bikes:     0 deaths,   84 moderate or severe injuries,    843 minor injuries

Draw conclusions as you will. Unfortunately, it's somewhat impossible to reconcile the numbers at this point. Cars drive many more miles annually than bikes do, but cyclists also tend to live closer to their destinations, greatly reducing the number of miles they require traveling. Most estimates peg cycling traffic at around 2% of automobile traffic, give or take.

At that rate of comparison, cyclists would be expected to have caused 20.8 deaths, 97 moderate or severe injuries, and 345 minor injuries. If it were up to me, I'd opt for the higher number of minor injuries and greatly reduced number of deaths any day.

Please also take note that in this comparison, I was very generous to cars. We didn't add data on injuries and fatalities caused by car-on-car crashes versus bicycle-on-bicycle crashes, which I'm sure we can both agree would have come out far in favor of the cyclists. We also didn't consider non-fatal health effects of car emissions, and we rounded down fatal health effects. We also haven't even begun to talk about the year-over-year decrease in cyclist-related pedestrian fatalities in New York even though cycling participation has been increasing by double digits (as high as 26%) yearly.

And the cars _still_ came out looking bad.

What do all these have to do with bikers blowing through red light and stop sign?

On the flip side, these causalities reinforce the requirement of ALL road participants to follow the traffic laws. If the bikers stop at red and stop sign, don't you think the biker injures would go down?

Funny you should mention that. In the UK, at least, women are at greater risk of death while cycling precisely because they follow this exact traffic law.

  http://www.metro.co.uk/news/46427-women-cyclists-more-at-risk-of-death

And the numbers emphasize exactly the point I made earlier. Cycling is less dangerous than driving. So much so that nitpicking stupid crap like cyclists running lights with no oncoming traffic is idiotic. Even with behavior like this, they're _still_ safer than cars.

Daily, we put up with drivers who speed, talk on their cell phones, drive while drunk, tailgate, dart between lanes without signaling, roll through stop signs, pollute the air we breathe, burn through our limited reserves of fossil fuels, injure forty million people per year, and kill one and a half million people per year, and you're hung up on the, what, _tens_ of deaths caused by cyclists per year due to running red lights? If that?

While you're at it, why not join the crusade against the grave threat we face from children running with scissors?

Get. A. Fucking. Grip.

Funny you picked that story. The study was for woman cyclists having higher fatal collision with trucks than men. The study doesn't say cyclists stopped at traffic light having a higher chance of fatal collision with trucks. The news report picked two collisions and twisted the study's conclusion. Looks to me pretty bad reporting.

> Get. A. Fucking. Grip.

Nice way to live up to the angry biker image. Calm down.

  > Nice way to live up to the angry biker image. Calm down.

That's the fun thing about stereotypes. If a biker gets angry, he/she is 'living up to the angry biker image.' If a car driver gets angry, that's just 'normal.'