But lanes for cyclists and signage for special routes might offer little more than the illusion of safety. The designated bike corridor on the street where Ms. Kung died, Second Avenue, is known as the Lane of Death for all the accidents. She was struck down just days before a new signal system was put in place.

Her death made me shiver. It still does. I lost a friend on a bike to a car, and I’ve seen others crushed in terrible accidents. Once, after snagging a wheel in an old streetcar track, I was thrown across the pavement like dice on a craps table. Still, I love to ride. I love to daydream when I ride. I used to love to pretend I was Lance Armstrong in the Pyrenees, until he was proven a pathological liar and cheat. But I’m my own worst enemy, because every cyclist must assume that every car driver could kill them. And you should never daydream.

Last year, Daniel Duane caused a stir in these pages when he wrote a piece titled, “Is It O.K. to Kill Cyclists?” His point was that in most bike-vehicle deaths, the driver gets off with a minor traffic citation, a mere inconvenience.

Harsher penalties may deter some accidents, but I doubt it. It’s better to learn from places with long biking traditions, and to change the way we think about the road when on the road. In the Netherlands, deaths per total number of miles cycled are much lower. This is attributed to educated bike riders, who stay in the lanes, signal properly and obey traffic signals. In turn, drivers learn to look for cyclists who may be just out of mirror range.

When I drive my car, I get mad at cyclists who weave in and out of traffic, won’t move over, never stop at a red light and flip me off when I come within eye contact of them — the self-righteous bastards. When I ride my bike, I hate all those people in cars, some of whom are texting while driving — far worse than driving drunk, as my colleague Matt Richtel documents in his new book, “A Deadly Wandering.” If each side could just think a little more like the other side, it would go a long way toward improved safety.