Personally, I admire salmons. I rode against traffic on LA roads a few times and, frankly, having all those cars coming at me at 45mph is one of the most frightening sensations ever

(tho, honestly, its not like going with traffic is any less dangerous, since cars are still whizzing past you at those speeds and then you can't even see them. But acting like a vehicle makes you more predictable, so the cars can react to you better than if they were heading head-on to you, I guess).