This is what I would do as well. If I got a ticket for it, I would explain it to a judge as you have here. It is for your safety and for the safety of all the other cars that you would choose not to ride in the far right lane.

The only time I have been hit, it was because I was trying to stay in the bike lane until I actually needed to get over to turn, unfortunately it was across 4 lanes of traffic and as one car on my left waved me over another was trying to come up around the left side of them them and cut them off to make a turn to the right. I can easily see a similar situation happening here where someone is trying to get over at the last minute as you're merging left.