I suspect most "accidents" and near misses are the result of a combination of:

1. Passive-aggressive behavior.
2. A threat/no-threat attitude, rather than a "safety first" attitude.
3. The remarkable human capacity for self delusion.

I've never been able to convincingly lie to myself about anything (not to say I haven't lied -- but I always knew I was lying), so I was always skeptical of the assertions by psychologists that many humans are very capable of fooling themselves so convincingly that they actually believe obvious lies, even when confronted with the evidence.

Most of us have observed or experienced common examples of passive-aggressive behavior by other drivers, particularly when driving our own vehicles or riding as passengers:

1. We signal our intention to change lanes. There's plenty of room to do so if the driver behind us maintains his/her current speed. But as soon as we signal that driver speeds up to cut us off.
2. We're at a stop sign checking both ways for traffic that doesn't have a stop sign. We see an opening with a car approaching but 100 yards or more distance at a speed slow enough that we should be able to safely cross or turn. But that car speeds up when we enter the lane and forces a close call or near collision.

Pretty familiar, right?

Combine that passive-aggressive behavior with the threat/no-threat attitude. In other words, the driver regards all other road users -- motor vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians -- as competition, opponents and either threats to their person or property, or non-threats. A bicycle or pedestrian is a low threat. If they "accidentally" hit us or cause us to panic and crash or fall, the passive-aggressive driver justifies it as "not my fault, not my problem."

Rather than speeding up, they can choose to continue at their previous speed. But they don't. They could choose to change lanes -- something I occasionally encounter taking the rightmost lane on a three lane boulevard with little traffic and two clear middle and leftmost lanes -- but they don't. They'll roar up on my tail before passing at the last moment. They choose to force confrontations. And if anyone makes the slightest error in judgment, or something unforeseen occurs -- road debris, another driver pulling into traffic, a bird smashing into my face or the driver's windshield -- they've left no margin for error. It was unnecessary, but they chose a more aggressive stance.

These drivers often express overt road rage as well. I've ridden with more than a few, carpooling to work, etc. Never more than once, however. I won't continue riding with someone who can't control their tempers, or who drive aggressively.

All of that is pretty familiar to most of us. We've seen it, possibly even experienced some of it in ourselves at times, at least in bad moments.

Now, add to that the capacity for self-delusion. This is foreign to me, but apparently many people are capable of immediately rewiring their memories to believe anything they want.

So it's entirely plausible that a careless, reckless or hostile driver may provoke a near miss or collision and also be able to immediately create a new reality, embedded in memory, that enables them to actually believe they "didn't see us".