Originally Posted by
DangerousDanR
If you want to see what a "physicians view" of bicycle safety looks like look at.
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsa...cle/index.html
Very standard stuff. Use lights, don't drink alcohol and ride, stay away from cars driven by people who have been drinking alcohol... Wear a helmet and there should be laws requiring helmets.
All in all, mostly useless.
Unfortunately many traffic engineers view bicycles as an annoyance. My fair city asked for comments on a proposed bike path that went from nowhere to nowhere, but it went partly on park property so the park district so maybe they would pony up some of the money to build the useless thing.. Except all comments were ignored. They have money to spend and that is what matters.
The opinion piece in the WP (op link) was basically suggesting that medical experts weigh in to say that the poor infrastructure available to cyclists is a public health issue. If you look at your CDC link, there's a token bit at the end linking to sites talking about better road design. Changing the emphasis of that CDC page away from helmets and the like would be the sort of change in approach the OP doctor was arguing for.
I think the gist of this is that "traffic engineers" and public officials need to be pressured to change their priorities in designing roads, and there's an excellent public health case to be made that people can relate to and understand.