KCStar columnist: Can we please, pretty please, make our streets safer?

That means, with four months left in the year, 2006 already is tied with 2002 for most cycling fatalities in the metro area, according to the Missouri Bicycle Federation.

“If we have another (death), it looks like it will be a record year,” says federation board member Eric Rogers, who compiles the official metro area report from Kansas and Missouri statistics.

Far less obvious is why we’re having this rash of fatalities.

Brent Hugh of Raytown, who heads the bike federation, has his theory.

“Honestly, I think it’s just that people are out riding more,” he says.

While still a small number compared with all the cars on the road, more of us are using bikes for transportation.

So, percentagewise, the number of fatalities might not be as high as it seems.

Then again, as someone who’s out there riding regularly, that’s not exactly comforting to hear. Nor does it make you feel better to know that far more people die in cars than do on bicycles.

“Every time someone is killed in a car, it doesn’t flash up on our radar screen,” Hugh says.

Still, his group, state officials, the Mid-America Regional Council and others recently formed a Share the Road Task Force to work on ways to make the city safer.

Maybe it will do some good. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt motorists and cyclists alike to be more careful.

Drivers need to accept that more cyclists are out there and watch out for them.

Cyclists need to remember that they have to follow the same rules of the road as people in cars do.