So basically it's not safe anywhere and you might as well just stay home in bed

The only way that I see it's possible for someone to get hit from behind while riding in the center of the right hand lane, is through road rage. Because the drivers would have to see you there. The only way they would hit you is if they happen to lose control of their vehicle, which would be rare, or if they develop a psychopathic case of road rage and make the decision to purposely run you over, and I really hope the latter isn't becoming more common around here. Just recently I heard about a woman driver who got angry and deliberately ran a motorcycle off the road. That's scary. But even walking around town these days is scary, with all the accounts of murder happening around here.

But in my experience, it rings absolutely true. And I've been riding my bike and a longboard in town for many years. I've never had any near hits from behind when I ride on the side or to the middle of the lane because they see me, especially when I use hand signals. And, you know, I've also pissed off a lot of drivers in my time, especially by fingering them and having my own bout of road rage. I'm surprised they haven't run me over.

For me, the only hazards I ever encounter are always from
1: riding on the sidewalk
2. riding too close to the sidewalk
3. riding too close to parked cars near the sidewalk or through parking lots
4. riding on the wrong side of the road

I can't count how many times I've nearly been hit by cars from riding on the sidewalk (always when going across driveways or crosswalks or roads that don't have crosswalks). They don't expect me to be in driveways (because it's hard for them to see me on the sidewalk but also they can't judge how fast I'm going) so they decide to turn into the driveway as I'm going through it. They don't expect bikes to be speeding across crosswalks either.

It's even worse on a longboard because people may still see you but they don't realize how fast you are actually going. And I swear longboards can go faster than cars and bikes, but they just don't expect that.

And cars really don't see bikes that are riding way too close to the sidewalk either. They will merge right into you or cut right in front of you and then slam the breaks on when they realize they can't make the turn yet, causing you to slam into the back of their car. I swear people like that may see you, but they might just be impatient. But the thing is, if you move over to the center of the lane, they can't do that.
Unless they are psychopaths with the intent to run you over, that is. I guess, they could also happen to lose control of the vehicle or something, but that has never happened to me or anyone that I know of.


And I also don't want to ride too close to the side of the street especially if there are parked cars there, or else I'll run into car doors that open and unexpecting pedestrians that are trying to cross the street.

This one time when I was on my longboard, there was a car that parked on the side of the road a fair distance in front of me, and for some reason I thought it was moving, but that was just an illusion. And I didn't realize how fast I was moving either, so when I turned to look away for a few seconds at a bunch of people nearby, and I was very surprised when I ended up ramming straight into the back of the parked car with enough force to send me doing multiple flips over the top of it. And of course everyone just laughed at me, thinking, "look at that girl trying to look cool on her giant skateboard" (no one knew what longboards were back then).

Drivers nearly drive straight into me when I ride against traffic, especially at corners. I still do it sometimes when I'm in a hurry to get somewhere on the left, but generally, it's pretty risky.

Completely unrelated, but I swear being a pedestrian in this town is more dangerous than being a cyclist. Every time I am walking across a crosswalk, some impatient idiot in a car always tries to drive up my butt. Like literally trying to drive up my butt. It makes me so mad that I really want to bend over next time it happens, drop my pants and open it up so they can just drive on right up there.
But then I worry that would encourage them to actually try.