I ride to and from work daily. I wear a helmet nearly all the time. I regularly ride into oncoming traffic… Sometimes I volunteer, sometimes the traffic suddenly switches to my lane.
In either case, I think it’s important to be aware of your surroundings and know when to slow down. I have been in a couple of bike wrecks in the States. All of them were at fairly high speed because our bike lanes are designed, as are our traffic laws, to allow for people to move around at high speed with limited interruptions.
Here I have a break on my bike and I just ride much more cautiously. I have headphones sometimes in the states. Here that seems like a suicide attempt.
I’ve come very close to crashing here, but almost always at speeds much much slower than in the US. Probably the same in the west anywhere.