Helicopter parent fear of the boogieman. A few messed up kidnappings of children in the 70s caused a news media frenzy and now everyone is afraid of anything that moves.

Heck, a neighbor's small daughter crashed her bike and started crying near me. I went out to help and immediately turned around as a 25 year old dude because honestly I didn't want to go to jail. It's essentially impossible to be a single man alone in the presence of a small child. It's way too risky these days.

We've fallen to commoditization of "the village" services. No more are people taking care of neighbors children out of friendship or helping someone build a fence, etc. We now pay for everything and with that, our duty to our fellow neighbors/man/even family has eroded. We're isolating and compartmentalizing every relationship and every interaction and I personally believe it's the doom of our cooperation as a people in the US.

From what I understand, US cities are generally not designed with bicycle infrastructure in mind. Bicycling is seen as a dangerous activity for the real enthusiast, rather than something that everybody does.