Cycling in NYC can be fun, healthy, and might eventually help push the city into better accommodating non-vehicular traffic. But it's also particularly dangerous, there is no getting around that.
I'm not sure that a story of one experienced rider being struck and killed invalidates the common sense argument that more experience is better than less experience.
I did not mean to impress that the techniques I mentioned above, if mastered, would result in 100% safe riding.
As far as biking being particularly dangerous in NYC, you'd need stats like miles traveled vs fatalities for a number of major cities to make that determination. It might be more dangerous in NYC, but it might not.
I don't mean to fear monger, but I suspect that confidence is just as dangerous as ignorance when you're on a bike in NYC. Very experienced cyclists also end up dead: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/nyregion/cyclists-death-s...
Cycling in NYC can be fun, healthy, and might eventually help push the city into better accommodating non-vehicular traffic. But it's also particularly dangerous, there is no getting around that.