Riders are risking their lives in races where organisers battle huge costs, and cycling's world governing body the UCI "cannot keep traffic off the roads", according to former rider and team boss Jonathan Vaughters.
Britain's Fin Tarling, 19, died during the Volta a Portugal on Friday following a high-speed collision with a van which had strayed on to the closed road.
A Go Fund Me page to promote young cycling talent has been set up in memory of Tarling, who rode for the NSN Cycling Development Team and was brother to Netcompany-Ineos' Josh Tarling.
Vaughters, who is co-founder and boss of the EF Education-Easypost World Tour team told BBC Sport: "What I'm really not enjoying is this sentiment that's coming from very powerful people in cycling, that says: 'What can you do? Sometimes cars just end up on the road - this is just part of doing competitive sport on the open road.' That is not true. This is preventable."
He added: "People look at the Tour de France and see a bunch of riders going through the beautiful French countryside, but fundamentally it's a very dangerous sport. From the start of my career I can't tell you how many people we've lost."

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