Originally Posted by
spare_wheel
I think a common theme here is that those who are splitting do so when there is a line of motionless vehicles thus making risk of sideway movement irrelevant.
Yeah, that's the big thing for me.
About four years ago I was riding in a bike lane passing a line of
recently motionless vehicles that had just started moving and one of them right hooked me. Since then, I vigilantly watch out for gaps in the line of traffic to my left (anything that might allow a car coming the other way to turn left or a car going my way to suddenly start moving) and once the line of traffic starts to move at all I don't pass or ride beside any vehicle anywhere near a possible turning location.
Obviously it would be safer to never pass a line of traffic even if you have a bike lane, but even safer than that would be to stay at home with all the doors and windows locked. You have to draw the line somewhere.