On an early October evening in 1880, 17-year old Mary Porter was on horseback, returning home from Prospect Park in Brooklyn, when a nearby coachman lost control of his charge; the horse lunged toward her and she fell to her death. Blame was placed quickly. The coachman maintained that the horse had reacted to a passing bicycle, which had sent the creature into a state of terror.

It had only been four months since a seven-year ban on cycling in the streets had been lifted in Brooklyn, as the historian Evan Friss explains in his absorbing new book, “On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City.’’

Now there were cries for renewed regulation. Concern was growing that bicycles would present a constant threat to equine temperament and that cyclists themselves were an unreliable and callous breed who took pleasure in taunting the animals that served as the city’s transit system. In response, a prohibition was soon imposed on cycling in city parks.

This sense of suspicion and contempt toward cyclists seems to have dissipated very little over the past 140 years. Two weeks ago I wrote a column about the rising number of cyclist fatalities in New York City. I received dozens of comments from readers arguing that cyclists rode with an abandon bordering on lunacy, running red lights, speeding and ignoring pedestrians to a point where older New Yorkers, especially, felt endangered whenever they walked out of the house.

With the advent “of Mayor Bloomberg’s disastrous vision of turning the city into some idyllic paradise for bikers,” Gerald Rosenthal of the Upper East Side wrote, “walkers have become a threatened species!’’

Few cyclists would agree with this impression of utopia. Since mid July, three more cyclists have died in crashes with cars or trucks, bringing the number of cyclist deaths this year to 18. In the most recent instance, a 30-year old artist was killed traveling northbound on Third Avenue in Brooklyn when she attempted to maneuver around the open door of a parked van and collided with a Freightliner tractor-trailer according to the police.

Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly reminded the city, via Twitter, that it is against the law to open a car door in the path of a cyclist. But the legal consequence to the driver for opening that door does not extend beyond a summons. Of the 18 fatalities this year, arrests have been made in two cases (though in six or so instances cyclists either disobeyed or failed to pay attention to traffic signals). Even when a cyclist was killed by a driver who was exceeding the speed limit by 12 miles an hour in Brooklyn in May, the driver was merely given a summons.

However much cyclists might need to heighten their awareness on the roads, cars and trucks kill people in far greater volume than cyclists kill people. Of the 711 pedestrians who have died in traffic collusions since 2014, only four have been killed by bicycles.

The law, however, protects some forms of human error more assiduously than others. In the same week that a driver was punished with a summons for opening a car door in such a way that it led to a young woman’s death, Juan Rodriguez, a social worker and the father of 1-year old twins, was charged with manslaughter for accidentally closing the door to his car, leaving his children in the back seat, where they died from the excessive heat. He believed that he had dropped them off at day care, in a scenario that has become tragically common among distracted parents since the late 1990s.

Just over a week ago, the mayor introduced a $58.4 million plan directed at promoting bike safety in the wake of the current crisis in fatalities. The plan calls for the installation of more bike lanes, the redesign of certain intersections and various traffic signaling adjustments.

But without a systemic rethinking of the primacy of cars in urban life and the implementation of more aggressive ways to de-incentivize driving and particularly careless driving, it is hard to imagine a new world emerging.

There has never been enough room in New York City and space has always been contested. For too long, cyclists have been burdened with the status of interlopers. “Every New Yorker should be outraged that our decision makers put inanimate objects above human beings,’’ Danny Harris, the incoming director of Transportation Alternatives, a prominent advocacy group, remarked.

A system in which the penal code favors irresponsible drivers in so many instances and in which huge portions of the city are served by inadequate public transportation — or almost no public transportation — requires a grand revision.

“We need a plan for the next century built around people, not scooters and flying cars and hyperloops,’’ Mr. Harris told me. “Even if you are wealthy you have to battle midtown traffic to get to your helicopter to take you to the Hamptons. You’d be hard pressed to find too many people who are really thriving with what we’ve got.”

Ginia Bellafante has served as a reporter, critic and, since 2011, as the Big City columnist. She began her career at The Times as a fashion critic, and has also been a television critic. She previously worked at Time magazine. @GiniaNYT

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