That’s probably because many orders of magnitudes more people drive than cycle - more’s the pity.
Cyclists unfortunately occupy this almost vestigial space in terms of transport where they’re dangers to the general user base of footpaths and roads.
That's the obvious point; the more nuanced one is that cyclists on a pedestrian path is more commonplace than cyclists on a driven road, and the latter is a lot more inherently dangerous and a liability. I'm certain it happens, but I cannot recall, anecdotally or otherwise, a single substantial incident between cyclists and pedestrians beyond minor nuisance or minor injury, much less a fatality. However, just a few months ago, I
witnessed a person getting stuck by a car just two doors down the street from my home, and that's my anecdotal experience of the fact that people get hit by cars every day.
This may not be uniform, but when I was taught to drive I was told both pedestrians and cyclists had the right of way in all road interactions outside of blatantly incorrect if not illegal actions. Maybe that is more common than I thought.
I was taught the same, and it's basically true/law because cyclists and pedestrians have absolutely no agency on the road when it comes to the behaviors of the multitude of +2-ton vehicles traveling many times faster than any bike or footgoer. It's law because people are gonna people, and jaywalk through and/or ride their bikes with traffic, and drivers need to be aware of their surroundings at all times given their crucially limited response time and speed when hurtling what's effectively a blunt-force missile of liability down the street.
Without reading the article, I'd say it's a lot easier to break the rules accidentally as a driver compared to a cyclist. You can easily slip over the speed limit or not give enough clearance when passing another road user (minimum 1.5m in the UK for overtaking a cyclist, which puts you way over in the other lane), which are rules that realistically can't apply to cyclists.
But I'll almost always side with cyclists because the standard of driving I observe is absolutely shocking. It's taken for granted as a right rather than a privilege you get to keep by being a safe road user.
I'm in favour of mandatory retesting every ten years or so, but when this is raised people go on about how you're taking away someone's independence, as though their right to independent travel somehow outweighs the right of others not to be run over by someone not competent to drive a 1.5 tonne vehicle.
I think cyclists on the road get a universal eyeroll because they slow traffic down and create liability as I've spoken of so many times already. If I'm driving down the road, and suddenly there's a herd of bikes doing a third of the speed limit and taking up half the road, it IS annoying. I have to slow down, check behind me for faster moving traffic for an opportunity to change lanes and get by, and when I do, I have to pray one of them doesn't fall in front of me while I'm passing. Imagine if any of this happened in normal commuter traffic:
Regardless of the conditions of that study, of course cyclist are safer than drivers; they have no choice if they want to live! Do you think a cyclist starts pedaling faster to get through a light that *just* turned red? Is a cyclist gonna blindly cross two lanes in traffic because they might miss their turn? If they can exceed the speed limit, more power to them, and that's damned impressive.
Cycling in traffic is one of those issues that's always gonna hit a nerve to some extent, like breastfeeding in public, or those people who bring small children into a bar full of rowdy adults, or the old lady who buys $30-worth of groceries, then fumbles in her purse for a $0.50-off coupon before paying with a check, i.e.: yes, they're "allowed," but goddamnit,
seriously?!?