I've also noticed in the US that people have a built in idea of how fast a bicycle goes - roughly 20-25 km/h, the speed that the middle school and high school students go while biking to class. I can often reach 40 km/h on my road bike, but I have to pre-emptively brake as soon as someone starts a right turn or is about to pull into the road. Because they see a cyclist, assume I'm going 20 km/h, and pull out directly in my path even though I would have smashed straight into the side of their car if I had not defensively braked.
It's like their brain just shuts off estimating speed and distance as soon as they see a bicycle, it's very interesting.