The risk is drastically less, as evidenced by the crash rates and crash severity.

Is it? Vic Roads claims you are up to 10x more likely to be killed if you travel by bicycle vs car. And it would make sense to me that you’re more likely to be killed if you ride fast.

Certainly all of my own bicycle crashes have involved speed - I’ve never suffered any injury at all, not even a bruise, when I was riding slowly.

But anyway, I generally reject your assertion that the punishment should be matched to the level of risk. For me the punishment should be set at whatever level is necessary to encourage the majority of riders to ride safely. And it’s not up to the police to determine what speed is “safe”. That determination is up to the town planning contractors who set the speed limit on the bridge.

If it was a slap on the wrist fine, everyone would ignore the speed limit. That doesn’t seem right to me at all.