People will always be entitled, but there needn't be dangerous contact. As a lifelong cyclist, the main problem (in my opinion) America faces here is the fact that we have
exclusively car-first infrastructure.
The American stop sign, to me, is the symbol of how entrenched everything is here. Stop signs make zero sense for any mode of transportation except for cars. A physical, traffic-calming rotary at every intersection, in every neighborhood would be much more sensible, and reduce conflicts.
We could add collapsing bollards to create cycling corridors that cyclists actually want to be on, instead of the insane decision we've made to mix our cyclists and vehicles with a single line of paint on some of the busiest roads in the cities we live in.
Where all of this runs into a problem is with emergency response vehicles. Because our fire/EMS infrastructure is path-dependent with our transportation infrastructure, they tend to bitch and moan any time physical barriers are put up, or pedestrian malls are introduced. The system is the way it is, and if it changes, they believe it will cause them problems. The Fire Department in SF has been one of the biggest roadblocks to creating safe parallel corridors for cycling infrastructure, blocking bollards, neutering rotaries to the point if ineffectiveness, blocking traffic calming features unless they allow for high-speed fire/EMS vehicles, thus defeating the purpose.
If anyone wanted to make a long lasting impact on American society, this is the problem I would focus on solving. I think building emergency response vehicles (specifically fire, and ambulances) that can interact with a traffic calming feature that is impassible to normal vehicles but passable to bicycles and pedestrians (say via high clearance) would do more for saving lives, reducing emissions, and stemming the tide of the American development pattern across the world than almost anything else.