Why would anyone not continually bike for commuting purposes once they are wealthy? Biking is such a joy whether you're 7 or 70, rich, or poor.
I've been told Berklee College of Music makes it very easy for students to leave and later come back, even years later, exactly to enable students to grab transient professional opportunities without sacrificing their education. I wonder how engineering schools stack up in comparison.
E.g. these authors find the health improvement statistically increases your life expectancy by up to 14 months, while traffic accidents statistically reduce it by up to 9 days. That's a ratio of 47 to 1.
Edit regarding your comment: Oh, I see why you're confused. I didn't need to do the math because I was talking about a 1-time bike ride as an example to just get the point across -- it's already scary for 1 ride. But if you want the actual math for a lifetime, there's a ~1/5000 lifetime odds of dying in 1 year of biking. That's still pretty damn high. I don't know about you but I'd rather just give up on the 78th expected year of my life and lose the 0.1% chance of dying in the next 5 years.
But the point of bringing up the statistic is to check "is this risk worth worrying about, to the extent that I'm not gonna do thing X"? That's what a rational person does in all situations - is the risk of flying so high that I shouldn't go on holiday? No. Is the risk of falling if I climb that cellphone tower so high that it's not worth it for the view? Yes.
I'd take a 1/1000000 chance. I wouldn't take a 1/1000 chance. Get the point?