Researcher also has free (speech and beer) schematics for making your own sensor and replicating the experiment.
Have you heard of this concept? Does it ring true for you? Do you live somewhere where cars pass you dangerously?
Wear a helmet or don’t, but either way, society is responsible for making bicycling safer, and encouraging more people to take a bicycle over a car trip. Mandatory helmet laws reduce the number of people cycling, and the safety in numbers factor.
That’s my intuitive experience also. This person’s research found the opposite, ie passing distance was closer when the bicyclist was further from the kerb, but maybe the experiment didn’t account for what you describe (drivers waiting for a safe chance to pass, bicyclists signaling or moving over to indicate a good time to pass).
On the other hand, i could believe that cars tend to pass closer if you ride further out, and still ride further out to be more visible, discourage unsafe (re: opposing traffic) passes, and avoid hazards on the edge of the road.