I use a full complement of lights at night (white light in front that I set to flash, rear red flasher that I put on a sort of rotating pattern, spoke lights for the side view), use a rearview mirror on my helmet, and am very conscientious about signalling turns.
However, I definitely treat stop signs and flashing red lights as "yield" signs even though I don't live in Idaho or a state that legally allows that (if I ever get stopped by the cops I plan to ask them if they really want me to slow down the traffic behind me, and point out that at my speed, I'm spending as much time near the intersection as a car that stops does). My friend (who recently did RAGBRAI with his son) that sometimes rides places with me is very anal about following every rule, and it's an unspoken awkward element of riding together that as I breeze through the intersection, he slams on his brakes and then has to hurry to catch up with me again (sometimes we are on a road that has stop signs at the end of every block, and I cringe at how much work that looks like, LOL).
I too have noticed that cars seem to be generally more careful about giving cyclists space than they used to, which is mostly a good thing. However, a lot of them seem to me to go a little too far the other way. I don't ride all that fast (I like to think of myself as part of the
Slow Bike Movement) and it makes me grit my teeth when I'm moseying along, way over to the right, and a car just idles along behind me at 7 mph or whatever even though there is plenty of room to go around me. It's basically tailgating IMO. I also find, especially when my kids are with me, that we'll be waiting at a stop sign (when on a side street, at an intersection where we are waiting to cross a through street), and a car coming along the busy through street will stop, despite not having a stop sign or light, and motion for us to cross. I tend to be hesitant to do this, and then sometimes a line of cars starts forming behind the car that stopped, and everyone is getting impatient and irritated with everyone else, ugh.