How Safe Is Bicycling?

So how safe is cycling? It’s a question I sometimes wonder about, particularly when riding higher traffic roads.
This article on a Canadian website provides some statistics:

Fatalities by distance

Every 1.6 million kilometres (one million kilometres) cycled produces 0.039 cyclist fatalities, compared to 0.016 fatalities for motorists. They’re both very low, but the risk for cycling is more than double.

This comparison is only partially useful, because people typically drive much farther than they cycle.
Fatalities by time traveling

They [Failure Analysis Associates, Inc.] concluded that the fatality rate for every million hours spent cycling is 0.26, compared to 0.47 per million driving hours.

Fatalities by participation

According to the US National Safety Council, for every million cyclists in the US, 16.5 die each year, whereas for every million motorists, 19.9 die each year.

I’d be interested in knowing how “cyclist” is defined here. Obviously someone who rides 100 miles/week on the road has a higher risk exposure than someone who rides a few miles/week on a multi-use path.
Fatalities by crash rate

The odds of dying from a bicycle crash are one in 71. This compares to one in 75 for a light truck (pickup truck, SUV, van), one in 108 for a car, one in 43 for a truck, one in 26 for a motorcycle, and one in 15 for a pedestrian.
In other words, the odds of dying in a bike crash are about the same as the odds of dying in an SUV crash. The false sense of security that comes from an SUV tends to produce far more dangerous driving behaviour.

The article further notes that the odds of a rear-end collision with a vehicle–the type of crash I worry about the most–are fairly low:

According to a 2003 study in Toronto, collisions involving a motorist overtaking a bicycle accounted for only 11.9 percent of the total. Among those collisions, the cyclist contained minimal or minor injuries in nearly 90 percent of the incidents.

Still, the remaining 10 percent of collisions are presumably bad, and quite worrisome because the cyclist is often not at fault.
Risks versus benefits

The article rightly notes that when assessing the above risks, one should also consider the health benefits of cycling:According to a study by the British Medical Association, the average gain in “life years” through improved fitness from cycling exceeds the average loss in “life years” through cycling fatalities by a factor of 20 to 1.

Risk avoidance
Finally, the article notes that cyclists can, to some degree, limit their risk:

It might not be politically expedient to state, but in the majority of bicycle crashes, the cyclist is at least partly at fault. Cyclists are hit when they ride on the sidewalk and appear out of nowhere at intersections; when they pass on the right; when they ride at night without lights and reflectors; when they ride the wrong way down one way streets; when they ride too closly to parked cars; and so on.
. . .
However, the way you ride is a bigger factor in accident prevention. The absolute best way to avoid accidents is to ride as though you are driving a motor vehicle. In other words: be visible, follow the rules of the road, pay close attention to what’s happening around you, and practice defensive riding. You will earn the respect of motorists, maximize your safety, and get the most enjoyment from cycling.

Wise advice.