It's worth noting that risk compensation [0], where certain safety measures lead to people taking more serious risks, is a thing. In your skiing accident, is i

It's worth noting that risk compensation [0], where certain safety measures lead to people taking more serious risks, is a thing. In your skiing accident, is it possible you would have made different decisions in the lead-up that decreased your risk? It's entirely possible the same is true of cycling (I know that I catch myself taking more risks when riding with a helmet than without one). It's also not at all clear that the spike we're discussing is due to helmetless bicycle riders (notice that deaths for car occupants tick up in similar proportion). To your prioritization point, there's a lot of evidence that increasing the number of cyclists on the road makes interactions with cars safer for all cyclists (because drivers are habituated to looking for them), so any intervention that decreased the number of cyclists to make them "safer" could have inverse consequences. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation