Cycling has consistently been safer in the Netherlands than the UK. Nevertheless, safety has improved in both countries over time. Between 1980 and 2011, the cyclists’ fatality rate declined by 67% in the Netherlands and 57% in the UK. Per capita bicycle use was sustained in the Netherlands throughout the post-World War Two era, peaking in the early 1960s and only declining for a decade before recovering. In contrast, UK bicycle use peaked in 1952 and declined permanently. The survival of popular bicycling in the Netherlands through the 1950s and 1960s was fundamental to the development of effective bicycling policies after the 1970s. The Dutch network of cycle tracks and routes increased from 9,000 km in the mid 1970s to approximately 29,000 km currently. The annual distance cycled per capita increased by 30% in the ten years to 1988, but has not materially increased since then. In the UK, cycling has a long heritage as a marginalised form of travel. This continues to hinder efforts to achieve a national cycling revival. Nevertheless, cycling on quiet urban and rural roads in the UK incurs much lower risks than the national average fatality rate would suggest. Networks enabling cyclists to avoid main roads, especially rural A-roads, could provide safety levels comparable to the Netherlands and Denmark. There are towns in the UK with segregated cycling networks, but few cyclists. This is because a range of measures must be invoked to achieve large modal shifts to cycling. Local authority support is a critical factor.