Where I am, it is relatively safe and I am comfortable driving. I did move from the big city to a small one where the traffic is negligible by comparison. That being said, I have had to be on my toes and avoided a couple bad situations.
One was recently was a couple weeks ago where I waited for the light to turn green, then advanced a foot or 2 while checking for traffic. A semi rolled right through the red and I luckily didn't get hit from behind into him while stopping so suddenly.
I am not in a hurry and expecting people to do stupid stuff in a town with few aggressive drivers so it is not much of a problem. I bet it is dangerous as hell riding a bike these days with distracted drivers!
Small towns are nice, there's still idiots but way less and obviously less traffic also. I look forward to moving back to a small town in the future, but right now I cannot as I need access to things the city provides like the airport and all.
The semi thing...I've had the same here, a very near miss...it's as easy as that though right? And life is snuffed out in an instant.