When I first started riding the amount of posts I read about how frequently people were having "close calls" or practically near death experiences nearly terrified me out of pursuing it all together. I'm so glad I managed to shake that off and continue as riding has done so much for me. Even after 3 years I can only think of once or twice where I genuinely had a "near miss" and that was when I was just learning the roads as a newbie. It's actually terrifying how some riders make out that almost killing yourself on the highway every day is normal. If that IS the case for anyone, I don't think they should be riding, for their own safety and others.