Originally Posted by
wphamilton
You may know from reading many of my earlier posts, this is exactly how I did it 7 years ago. No experience, no studying, no experts, I just started doing it and learned as I went. I can't say that it's the best way to go about it but I can say that it's feasible and not nearly so difficult and dangerous as it may appear. In the past 5 years that I've logged daily, I have commuted by bike a bit over 1,000 workdays so I think I can reasonably say it's been successful.
I would expect it to be intimidating and probably dangerous for an inexperienced cyclist to emulate Forester (Vehicular Cycling, dogmatically) especially if he's not intimately familiar with how people react when driving. But all we really have to do is keep an eye on them, be cautious and just do it. I advised OP to follow all of the traffic rules in part to make sure that the cyclist actually knows them. It's kind of fundamental in anticipating what drivers are likely to do.
Millions of people worldwide, like you, have successfully figured out how to safely ride a bicycle without the benefit of lessons from experts (Certified, self appointed, or otherwise). Their riding may not pass the arbitrary "test/standards" established by some smug self appointed experts but it serves these bicyclists quite well.
You are correct that it would behoove the OP to learn the traffic rules that apply to all users of the streets for his own safety The advice previously given that the OP should consider getting a driver's license would be a step in that direction as well as likely be useful in his future endeavors.