IMO the amount of danger on a MTB is highly related to the type of rider you are. If you’re the “send it bro” kinda guy than yes you are going to crash and probably hurt yourself from time to time. Speaking for myself only I’m the complete opposite of that and my “send it” opportunities on any course are the climbs and less technical sections.
I barely give it a second thought.
I think I’m fairly competent on the road and don’t put myself in any unnecessary danger. Not much you can do about the freak accidents, I find comfort in the fact that probability is on my side here!
Life is too short to feel guilty about pursuing what makes you happy.
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To be fair, plenty of people get non-fatal injuries on a bike. Just looking at this chart may give people a false sense of security 
Not sure of bike/vehicle statistics, but for motorcycle safety getting hit in the rear happens about 6% of the time. I think it’d be safe to extrapolate that data outward, but just my .02
Disability insurance too
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Four young kids at my house and I get around the time issue by riding once they go to bed or on my lunch work break when the workout fits. The rides after they go to be are mostly on the trainer now that I’ve joined TrainerRoad but I also enjoy riding at night. Some argue it’s more dangerous but I feel like i’m much more visible to traffic with the lights on my bike, there’s a lot less traffic, and I’ve had far fewer issues with cars at night than during the day.
Yep, with me it was mostly nightly 10-20 mile jaunts out at night when my daughter was a newborn right after she went to sleep. The thing that took a hit was group rides on the weekend. Much easier now that she’s 8.
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Wife and I are living the DINK lifestyle. Zero guilt. For us, it couldn’t be better.
I agree about that, but there are grueling stories about gardening too. I remember my material mechanics professor amputating half his own hand trimming his hedge decades ago. Should that make me (and you) feel guilty about gardening?
We have way, way, waaay too many gruesome news bites in my opinion. Often freak events, and these stories make nobody’s life better whatsoever.
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Yep, this pretty much sums it up. Riding bikes really isn’t very dangerous. The perception of danger might be there, just like if you’re descending at 50mph on a bike it feels super fast, but drive at 50mph and it is slooow.
Good to see cycling is safer than general living. Means that if I can just ride my bike 24/7 then my life expectancy will be 439 years old! 
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It might be for some, in frequency of events, but the magnitude of each event is much much smaller.
By knowing all the concerns you listed are red herrings and that all cause mortality puts cyclists living longer than all those people in their cars crashing into each other and pedestrians, and if they don’t kill each other first, their hearts will fail before yours.
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To be fair, I’m pretty leery of swimming in the ocean because of sharks lol. And jellyfish…and regular fish…and seaweed…
All very icky. I like nice dry land where the things trying to kill me are visible.
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Not in California. 
And now I want to go skydiving again. Though I don’t think that was the point of the graphic.
Interesting chart though. Does kinda illustrate that driving seems safer b/c fatal accidents are common enough that they aren’t that newsworthy (which, admittedly, sounds a bit cold to say).
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I like both of these statements! Seconded
Yeah, and as long as you do your part, if you don’t hit the trees, the trees don’t hit you.
Exactly, but how does the ACM compare between indoor vs outdoor cycling at similar times and intensities?
Is that 6% of all vehicle-vs-motorcycle collisions, or 6% of motorcyclists have been rear-ended by other vehicles?
I don’t think you can directly compare motorcycles and bicycles. Bicycles usually aren’t in the lane followed by cars nor do they go the same speed as a motorcycle.