I have ridden with the mindset that nobody can see me, even if they are looking straight at me, they can't see me.
my only mode of transport for the first 3 years after getting my licence was on a bike.
since then I've lived and breathed bikes for nearly 40 years.
I agree that things have got worse in Australia.
I have witnessed the rapid demise of the "average driver"
I put it down to piss poor driver training coupled with some very bad road design.
That's part of the reason I leave at 6 am with my riding buddies
There are a lot less numptys around at that time of the morning.
Nine times out of ten we only see a couple of other road users.
Leave too late and the roads are crammed full of tourists, most who have left their brain residing in their suitcase at their hotels.
Big city's are a whole different ball game.
I did live in Melbourne for a number of years way back in the eighty's and ninety's and I would hazard a guess that the numptys there now would be prolific.
I still had fun in the city though.
I remember riding a road called the "Yarra Boulevard"
I was working in town doing construction and would detour to ride my bike on this little stretch of twistys, scraping the expansion chambers on my very loved Yamaha RZ 500.
In the weekends some local lads would constantly do laps up there.
I also remember being pulled over by a copper on the eastern freeway heading into town doing 160 KPH and he let me off with a warning!
Today that would be front page news, "Idiot biker dicing with death, 60 KPH over the speed limit" and I'd loose my licence for 3 months and cop an $1100 fine!!!!
I jumped for joy when Queensland changed the rules and made it legal to lane split at traffic lights. (I always did it, but now its not frowned upon)
You can get to the front of the queue, which is very satisfying in itself, but more importantly you get the jump off the lights and because bikes accelerate a lot faster than cars, you get to have your own space with no or very few cars in your vicinity.
This is one of the keys to survival for the humble motorcycle rider (IMO)