I tend to think that what you are experiencing is "Unconscious observation" in that when you saw the Commodore you did an unconscious "mental checklist" of it, for instance did you notice the age of the car, condition etc. was it standard, scruffy or mags and a young driver, or an old guy in a hat? well driven or etc. did they look like they were about to do something, at least when they didn't you erred on the side of caution. I have never been to a stay upright course or had formal motorcycle training but I did sit in on the last ten minutes of on a course that my daughter did and saw the end of a training video where they showed a situation. A car makes right hand turn in front a motorcycle and the motorcyclist has to pull up in a cloud of tyre smoke. They then commentated back through the incident and pointed out all the little things that could have warned you to what may have been about to happen, i.e. interstate plates on the car, passenger holding map and pointing to the turn etc. I it struck me that this could be the "Motorcyclist sixth sense" we used to talk about. Seeing and having it explained gave me a new perspective on riding and certainly helped with roadcraft and as I got older and practised it more often I found that riding on the road was getting scarier! because when you know what to look for and where, you get to see all kinds of loonies and it can sometimes scare you shitless!!! (ride home, park the bike and open that bottle of Toohey's medication!) But seriously I think that is what may be happening. p.s. Back in the nineties a British magazine called "Motorcycle Sport" ran a series of articles called "Roadcraft" that was written by a police motorcycle instructor, very useful set of articles.
