Addison Lee drivers told to defy bus lane law (and to just say SMIDSY)

fair enough, but the stats are not good either tho, isn't cycling growing out of necessity?

It depends on how you look at them--of course there are too many crashes, and we should always strive to reduce them, especially fatalities and serious injuries.

Numbers can never do justice to the devastation of someone being killed while travelling, or to how a serious injury can wreck someone's life for years. However, London's a busy place--over 20 million trips are made in London every day, out of which an estimated 500,000-600,000 are by pedal cycle. That means around 200 million trips by bike in London per year.

The latest crash stats that are available are here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/Cycling/casualties-in-greater-london-2010.pdf

These result in roughly 400 KSI (killed and seriously injured) per year (2010 had 457, which was very high), out of which 10-20 are fatal crashes (there is some under-reporting of serious injuries). Slight injuries are ones which don't require hospitalisation and are at around 3,500 per year (there is strong evidence of under-reporting of slight injuries and they are thought to be much higher).

So, in terms of actual likelihood of a crash, that's pretty low. However, people are obviously also very concerned about near-misses and general behaviour of other street users, which is often perceived to be poor in London. I have to say that I find London drivers on the whole to be far more alert to cyclists than in other cities I've ridden in, and indeed out in the countryside.

All that said, it is certainly clear that we have had a setback in the quality of London's transport policy in the last couple of years.