One thing it doesn't seem anyone ever wants to mention much about is respect. Yes, it should come from sides of the equation, the cyclist staying over out of the way of the traffic(as much as possible) and for the guys in automobiles to have the patient and realize both of you have the right to use the roadways across the country. Be courteous to the driver and I rarely have ever had trouble with them in over 100,000 miles of biking. The first accident was blatantly my fault and I accepted the responsibility for it right at the scene. The second one was a very unusual scenario as there is a stop light with the right lane setup like an on/off ramp. You're not suppose to make the turn at the stoplight itself but are suppose to make the turn on the 'off-ramp' configuration. I pulled up to the stop light, right beside a minivan, figuring they were going straight through. I hadn't unclipped and knew I wouldn't need to since I knew the stoplight quite well. The light turned green and I started to go when the minivan turned right in front of me and cut me off. Both of us were only doing 1-2 mph at the time so not even a scratch. When I looked inside of the minivan and saw it was 4 senior citizens I pretty knew it was only one of two things that had occured(too busy talking and not busy enough to notice the right turnoff or they changed their mind and decided they could get away with just turning at the light. Didn't think a thing about and moved on. Third accident I was cut off by a guy who wasn't thinking carefully enough and turned right in front of me after he had just passed me. If he wouldn't have had a ball hitch on the back of the vehicle I would have never made contact. I still laugh my ass off about that one. I couldn't have gotten taken out by something big, it had to be about the smallest darn thing on an automobile that could have taken me out. Once again, no real damage. The ragg wool pop top mittens I had on weren't damaged. Did have a couple of small tears in the booties but I'm still wearing them almost three years later. I use to only get one season off a pair of botties, this pair has gotten me 2.5 full winter and should make me through the rest of this winter....can't complain.
I ride i such a way as to 'more or less' make my invisible to the cars. I want to blend in but not stick out and cause them to be held up by me. I don't want to piss off the drivers...that's what makes them want to pot shot you to get you out of their way. When I'm riding around home(non snow months), on the touring bike I always use the inner kitty liter bucket and leave the traffic side free. I want to minimize my presence on the road and keep the drivers happy. Generally when I have trouble its with commercial drivers and not the regular guys on the road. Here in NH we have the 3-5 foot rule for passing cyclist, 3/30 mph, 4/40mph, 5/50mph. The ones that least obey are school bus drivers, semi truck drivers, guys with business names on their vehicle. Private travelers rarely fail to give me the required distance for passing. If I have trouble its generally the guys come from the opposite direction that want to pass the guy in front of them and turn a two lane road into a three lane road. Happens fairly frequently. Most but not all places up here have wider shoulders to make it safer when this occurs.
I remember the bike trip back in 2015, heading west from the state house in Tallahassee and seeing the sign that said bicyclist may use the full lane. I continued to see those signs off and on generally around decent sized cities all the way across the Gulf Coast and on up to the Twin Cities, MN. Never saw one of those signs again until last summer on a dya trip down to Greenfield, MA. As I was heading back home come up Route 5 just heading north from the center of town I saw a couple more of the signs which really caught my eye as I hadn't seen anything anywhere around this neck of woods that allowed bikers to use the full lane.
One ruling(Constitutional, upheld by the Supreme Court) that you need to stop and think about and remember. Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2(I believe I have the correct code in the US Constitution). If a state, any state passes a law and has it on the books in that state...the law is legal in all states. All states muse uphold that law even though it isn't on the books in the state you might be in. For example, Idaho Stop(Pause) Law. Gives cyclists the right to turn all stop signs into yeild signs. You don't have to put a foot down at any stop sign in Idaho, or any state in the country for that matter. The law goes o to say that a cyclist only has to yield before making a right hand turn at a stop light. When it comes to going through a stop light all the cyclist must do is come to a simple stop and then once traffic clears the cyclist can run the stop light even though it is red. Those laws apply in all states because they apply in Idaho. Go read Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2 and you will see what I'm talking about. I know in some parts of the country(SW side of Boulder, CO the sheriff department use to or still does lay for cyclist running stop lights...they can't do that legally or lawfully...yes there is a difference between something being legal and something being lawful)...legal is by state statute code, while lawful is by Constitutional law.
The biggest thing you can do when approaching riding on the road is to ride with respect, not only for yourself but for all users of the road.