That’s exactly my point, there’s a chance there’s a car in the opposite lane but there’s a chance there’s not… the ditch will always be there. It’s a mental block for me, not a justification for crossing the center line. While I take Nick Ienatsch’s advice to consider each trip over the yellow line a failure, I know there’s more pavement on the other side of it, and, to quote Morpheus, it “frees my mind”!
To state it another way that just occurred to me, the oncoming lane offers a margin of error… admittedly, a margin of error than can be taken away at any given instant. Think of it as binary code. The oncoming lane is a series of ones, with every car, and a given space (the amount you need to maneuver clear) ahead of it as zeroes. The edge of the road is an unbroken line of zeroes.
Then there’s the inconsiderate cagers who cross the double yellow and put the zeroes in your lane…