It's reversed in the US. Lots of accidents occur when people make a left hand turn and don't see a motorcycle/bicycle going straight in the oncoming lane.
Indeed. A big problem in DC is cars making U-Turns (i.e. a hard left turn) and cutting across the bike lanes that run along the center of Pennsylvania Ave.
I think this can be generalized to: Turning and/or crossing lanes results in more potentially dangerous situations than traveling within a traffic lane.
