The standard measure of transportation safety is accidents|deaths|injuries / (passenger * distance). There are very good reasons for this that don't change just because a transport modality is slower.
Really, the worst thing people can do about their safety is just putting their fingers on their ears and yelling while refusing to listen to reality. Let's have a honest assessment of cycling, because if it isn't as safe as we want, there are plenty of ways to improve it. But nobody will go fixing things if everybody denies that a problem exist.
