Why is it safer to bike with traffic, instead of facing oncoming cars? There has been an ongoing debate in my area's local newspaper, regarding biking with vs. against the flow of traffic. A recent incident in which a cyclist was hit from behind, and later died of his injuries, prompted a letter in which another local called for cyclists to bike opposing traffic, so that they could more easily see oncoming traffic and avoid it if a crash was imminent.

Experience, the law, and common sense all say that this is wrong &mdash; one would think that everyone knows you should ride with traffic because vehicular cycling is safer. That being said, the debate so far has been almost entirely focused on what the law says, and anecdotal evidence, which isn't enough to convince some people. Does anybody have any references to scientific studies showing actual data on the safety of riding with vs. against traffic? Explanations of why are welcome too, but please include some references or data. I'd like some sources that I can cite in a response showing that cycling with traffic is safer for everyone.
I found this article which has some statistics on accidents involving wrong-way cycling:




  Table 4 shows that all categories of bicyclists traveling against the direction of traffic flow are at greatly increased risk for accidents—on average 3.6 times the risk of those traveling with traffic, and as high as 6.6 times for those 17 and under. This result is readily explained: because motorists normally scan for traffic traveling in the lawful direction, wrong-way traffic is easily overlooked. To give only a single example, a motorist turning right at an intersection scans to the left for approaching traffic on the new road, and cannot see or anticipate a fast-moving wrong-way bicyclist approaching from the right.