somehow come to cause the zeitgeist to expect cyclists to take far more "safety precautions" than others in similar potentially harmful situations.
I’m not totally convinced that’s the case.
Looking only at roads, the other modes of transport on roads are subject to a lot of safety precautions.
For people walking, the biggest safety precaution is the provision of a dedicated and semi-segregated space, the pavement, and in busy places pedestrian safety is aided by things like zebra crossings, and speed restrictions on vehicles.
For people driving, the safety precautions that have evolved since c1900 are almost too numerous to list: competence licensing for drivers; speed limits; numerous warning/advisory signs; road markings; traffic lights; segregated routes for high-speed driving; annual basic fitness for use check of the vehicle (MOT); crash-survival features in the vehicle, including seat-belts; electronic assist systems ………
On a bike on most roads I’m still in pretty much the same position as the first bloke who rode a “safety bicycle” in terms of safety features, save possibly that the brakes and lights are a bit better, but the bad news is that the environment on the road in most places is several times more “cyclist unfriendly” than it was in 1900 (except probably for the road surface).
I’m as keen as anyone to see public money spent on safety precautions to help me when I’m on a bike, in the same way that it is spent on making me a bit safer as a pedestrian, and a fair bit safer as a driver, and luckily I live in a city where (to a degree almost unique in Britain) it has been …….. hundreds of miles of motor-traffic free shared-use paths. And, when using those do I feel the need to dress as a tangerine/Christmas-tree? Do I have any serious concerns about my children using them? No, because the risk profile is massively different from the road.
In an ideal world (The Netherlands?), a heck of a lot would be done to make it sensibly safe for everyone to move about their village/town/city safely by bike, and to travel between villages/towns/cities similarly, but at the moment many roads are a bit “Wild West” for cyclists, the sorts of places where individual wit, and individual precautions, however small their affect, are necessary. Maybe that shouldn’t be the case, but I honestly believe that it is the case.