In 5 years of riding almost every day with traffic, 10 mile round trip, I've had 0 collisions, a handful of close calls, and a handful of solo falls, mostly on ice. The close calls were all within the first year, as I recall. Hopefully that means I've gotten to be a better bicycle driver since then, and you will too.

As I've become more vigilant, I've also begun noticing times that it could have been a close call but wasn't because I was able to see the situation developing and respond, by slowing down and/or calling out to the driver. The next step beyond just doing everything right yourself is to begin watching for others to do something stupid and see it coming soon enough to react.

I have a little game that I sometimes play that I call "right-hook baseball". I generally take the full lane when stopped at signalized intersections. If I'm going straight in a lane that can also accommodate right turners, this keeps me from getting to the right of someone who is potentially turning right. So when the light changes and I go, I count the number of cars immediately in front of or behind me who turn right, and count that as a potential right-hook successfully avoided. A "single" (one car) is not uncommon, a "double" is a nice feeling, and a "triple" is the highlight of the commute!