Only a homicidal person would tell a bicyclist to ride in the middle of the car lanes when riding in a street. And yet people just love to continue to tell cyclists to ride in the middle of the car lane instead of on the shoulder or on the outermost edge of the road, especially when it's a rural or country road without any sidewalks or bike trails. Riding in the middle of the car lane is the surest way to get rear ended by a car, thrown over 100+ feet through the air and into the pavement, and killed, or paralyzed. And getting rear ended by a car is like getting hit from behind by a steel wall. And if you get hit while in the middle of the road, you would end up there and keep getting run over again and again by more drivers, it's like getting run over by a freight train. And if you're riding with the flow of traffic, you can't see what's coming behind you and you have no time to move out of the way of cars coming up behind you. And when it's an 8 mph bicycle vs 30+ mph traffic, whether the impact comes from the front or from behind, it's a lose-lose scenario.
Therefore, any bicyclist that rides on a rural or country road that has high volumes of traffic and no sidewalks is safest riding on the outermost edge of the road. Also, cyclists that ride against the flow of traffic often also ride on the outermost edge of the road so that if they see any big vehicles (cars, pick up trucks, semis, 18 wheelers, and so forth) getting uncomfortably close to the edge of the road, the cyclist can simply pull off the road, let the heavy big vehicles pass, and then resume riding.