With the sad news of another cyclist killed on Scotland's roads over the weekend, I'll put up these 2 charts here without comment, because they speak for themselves; 
Here is Police Scotland's take on these statistics when they were published at the end of June
Note, there is no specific national target for a casualty reduction in any specific mode of transport. As long as casualties in cars (50% of all casualties) continue to drop, the overall trend is met. You could increase cyclist casualties 10-fold and target is met
Controlling for journey distance (h/t @MarcoGBiagi ), since 2011 cyclist deaths increased then flatlined, since 2008 KSIs flatlined. For cars there has been a constant, long-term decrease over same period. Tl;dr we have made big strides in road safety for cars but not bikes
And looking just at cycling, since 2007 there has been a significant and steady rise in cycling (from a very low base). Yet no real improvement in deaths since 2011 and KSIs down only very slowly since 2007. Constant and significant improvement for cars
Then ask - why would it? We've spent billions on road infrastructure, on improving accident blackspots, on speed cameras, on traffic enforcement, on vehicle crashworthiness. The human body is as frail in 2007 as it is now and infrastructure investment has been a pittance
Just to put into context that 40% rise in cycling vehicle km
