I'm almost 2 meters tall and was crossing a street at a crosswalk with my bike yesterday, walking and pushing it at normal walking speeds, like the law requires. There was a car about to turn left from the lanes going left. There was a car from the lanes going right (the closest lanes to me) that slowed down as I started crossing the street. I assumed they saw me and that's why they were slowing down. Nope - they almost hit me but managed to hit the brakes very hard at the last possible second. Apparently they slowed down to make sure the car that would turn left would wait for them. If I was as tall as a 5 year old, maybe the car that almost hit me wouldn't have even seen me. If I got hit, I'd take it better than a 5 year old due to physics - my mass is bigger and the point where it would've hit me would've been my thighs instead of my torso. That car wasn't even with a tall hood or anything obstructing its view, just a regular car.

In another comment a few days ago I reminisced about how I was let running alone for hours on end when I was very young, and how that was normal.

It's a bit hard to reconcile both events now. I gained a lot of independence and had real unrestricted fun, but in hindsight I might've died a few times.

My idea, even if it might be traumatic, is to show the kid a few clips of people being hit by a car and getting mangled, with all the gore visible. Especially people following the laws and being careful. I miss /r/watchpeopledie as it was actually very educational.

I don't think you need to show videos, but definitely discuss street safety with your children when they are young. Possibly several times at different ages.

When I was young my dad took me out to the curb and warned me about the dangers of being on the street. He pointed out how fast cars were going, how being hit could be really damaging, how animals not infrequently died from being hit. He also warned about getting excited while playing games and inadvertently running into the street. Even bicycles were a danger. Everything changes at the curb. Having a good imagination, I took the lesson to heart.

I don't really understand how being scared/traumatized by videos of bike accidents will increase that child's visibility.

The onus here is on municipal and federal governments to make roads and cars safer.

Maybe, instead of trying to scare (scar?) children you should just teach them to make eye contact with the driver so you are sure they have seen you before you put yourself in the path of their car?

How much of our "safety" culture around kids is because people don't have basic life skills and aren't passing them on to kids?