I'm a cyclist and admitedly bend the traffic laws a bit. Less than some, more than others perhaps. I'm not going to attempt to justify doing that. However, on the whole, I believe that I have a better awareness of the traffic around me than drivers do. Knowing that I'm in a vulnerable position relative to those in the cars is incentive to pay attention.
Just the other day I was approaching an intersection in which I had the right of way (no stop sign) and saw a vehicle slow down, the driver looked the other direction, and then continued through his stop sign without looking my direction. I slammed on my brakes and we nearly hit in the intersection. I was travelling downhill roughly at the speed limit and would still look at each intersection I passed to check for bad drivers. I think that would be an uncommon thing for drivers to do.
It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
