Well, it's no magic bullet. Here (Finland) the insurance of motor vehicles always covers damages to bicyclists, even when the bicyclist is at fault (breaking a traffic rule) but that hasn't removed all car/bike collisions.
Having segregated (and physically separated) paths for bikes works well though. They remove the fear that when you're riding straight, a lorry comes from behind and kills you outright. Here the paths are usually shared with pedestrians, and while pedestrians are annoying, they are few (compared to Japan...) and it works reasonably. Intersections are a bit of a problem, but the mistakes by car drivers are quite predictable (and being also a driver myself, I know why they happen), so I can watch out.
