As someone who has done a bunch of long distance walks in the UK, I’ve encountered any number of relatively rural or small town roads with no shoulders along walls or hedgerows that are at least as scary as a pedestrian as anything I’ve encountered in the US.
It's not very safe if you can't get off a curvy road with no shoulder, especially in poor visibility. You're probably OK as a bet as a sometimes thing but not something I'd, have especially a kid, do on a daily basis. One reason I didn't learn to ride a bike as a kid because that basically described the road our house was on and fatalities associated with kids riding bikes wasn't rare.
Yeah, "I didn't die taking a jump in a wingsuit" isn't actually a recommendation that's a safe thing to do. Or, hey, plenty of people survived climbing K2.