I've been struck by the bike crashes this past week, because a couple of people have been struck by cars. The big story is Todd Muller, whose crash experience is told elsewhere on the ABC website. The lesser known story is Charlie Patterson, a stalwart of the Southern Bicycle League and a hell of a guy, who was also hit by a car, and has been in the ICU. I have no details on his crash, but he's become a man of steel, with a metal rod in his leg. Crashes (I don't call them accidents) are complicated, and messy. I do my best to stay out of them. But sometimes it happens despite all our precautions.

Certainly, that's what happened to Todd, hit from behind by a motorist who crossed illegally. From what I know of Charlie, I don't think he was taking chances, either – Charlie was mature enough to value his life. (Unlike one cyclist who wanted to keep his speed up, so he hoped that there'd be no car in the one-lane road and took the wrong way. He lived to tell about it, at least.)

Crash data stresses that the most common crash is a fall, and that bike-car crashes happen as often as bike-bike-car crashes. If I remember rightly, you have the same overall chance of a fatal accident cycling with a helmet as in a car, per mile of travel. And more crashes happen on busy roads. It also helps when we stay visible, and make sure that we let everyone else on the road know what we're going to do – whether turning or going straight.

Still, there are people who drive like expletives. I recognize them most often on the freeway, changing lanes as quickly as possible while going 20 mph above the speed limit. I also see them trying to do way too much in the driver's seat (eating, make-up, etc.), but especially yakking on the cell phone while driving.

What else remains for us is to change the culture, and our on-road system. Not simple, but not impossible, either. II biked about 12 hours in Copenhagen, Denmark last year. Every major road has a bike lane beside it, and a sidewalk beyond that. These are recognized, as safe as possible, and used by everyone, from guys in three piece suits to mothers pedaling three kids in the front of their do-everything vehicle. The average cycling speed is around 10 mph.

Beyond that, motorists are trained to be aware of cyclists (as if they could not be!) We won't change Atlanta overnight. But then, it took decades to go from Rosa Parks to Barack Obama. It's still worth doing.

How do we do it? We ride our bicycles, whenever and wherever we can, being visible and cautious, but noting that bicycles are traffic, too. We ask for improvements – more bike lanes on the roads, more trails off the roads, more paint and more pavement. We remind everyone that we are riding for transportation (and not just for recreation, as some motorists claim) and that we deserve public support, since we are not creating air pollution or supporting dictators by purchasing oil from them.

And we keep riding. It took us a few years to build a road system only for motor vehicles, and it will take a few years to re-build it to serve us better. But every day, we hop on our bikes, and every day we chip away at the mountain.