>But there's some of it that makes this position at the edge more dangerous than walking just a meter away from that edge. Some drivers simply don't see bicycles, or when they see them, they forget them immediately or think they are still where they were when last seen. They tend to remember "I have a car behind me", but "I have a bicycle behind me" somehow doesn't register - which means they may take a sharp right or pull over in front of a biker they just passed and completely forgot about.

I tend to see those situations most often as the biker forgetting that he/she has to follow the rules of the road and behave as though it is a motorized vehicle and when a car is in front of them slows down and turns right, the biker is required to slow down and yield just as a vehicle directly behind would. Instead you often see bikers disregarding the vehicle's turn signals and continue riding straight ahead into the car's path without stopping. Bicyclists are required to behave as a vehicle would and not a pedestrian.

http://www.ncdot.org/transit/bicycle/laws/laws_bikelaws.html