My commute from Oakland to SF was 20-25 minutes in rush hour (1hr in a car), without having to do anything particularly sketchy, just by filtering/lane splitting.
If you're looking at USA stats, you should know that there are many, many people in this country that will regularly get on their Harley, which they've never bothered improving technical handling skill on, after five or six beers, wearing a small plastic hat that resembles a WWI infantry helmet more than a proper ECE/DOT/Snell rated helmet, with jeans and a cutoff leather jacket, and wrap themselves around the nearest telephone pole trying to impress some chick.
If you ride with technical skill, good protective gear, and a respect for the machine and the unpredictability of drivers, you have much better prospects than the stats would suggest.