ArCaver wrote:You need not be bitten anyway, just saliva from the bat getting into a cut or abrasion could infect you. If you watch bats you'll see some grooming constantly while awake so it stands to reason there's a chance of some saliva on their fur.
Messenger et al. (2002) had a really good paper on rabies transmission from bats in this manner. They dicussed cases where people didn't even know they were infected because they weren't bitten and even rarer cases where rabies was actually suspended in the air and cavers were infected by inhaling it. The good news is the chances of getting infected in either manner (without being bitten) are extremely rare.
Here is a link to a copy of the paper if anyone is interested - http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/342387?cookieSet=1