Your statistic regarding UK pedestrians being killed/hit vs bicyclists being killed/hit isn't strong as it's probable that nowhere near as many bicyclists choose to ride on the sidewalk as compared to staying in bike lanes and roads. That is, if more bicyclists opted to ride on sidewalks, the incident rate would certainly increase.

Additionally, rationalizing this in terms of the risk towards the bicyclist just comes off as selfish: "I'm not comfortable with the risk I'm facing while bicycling on the roads, therefore I will put pedestrians at risk instead."

Perhaps instead of endangering pedestrians, something more constructive would be to engage politically to improve the situation (maybe you do this already, if so, awesome!).