I'm going out on a limb here, but does anyone else think that some of this relates to the campaigns of so-called "safety advocates" hyping up the riskiness of cycling?
If I was a parent with low information about cycling, I don't know that I'd encourage my kid to go riding in the face of ghost bikes and people incessantly talking about cell phone distracted drivers running rampant. If you keep sending out bicycling=death messages, you discourage riding more than you encourage safe driving.