Two other points, one optical, one learned:
You're moving. Someone might see you but they also need to project your trajectory. Sometimes a bright light can actually obscure movement.
Bikes and cyclists behave in a slightly different way to cars and drivers (and trikes are slightly different again). When teaching a small child to cross the road, you'll notice that one of the problems they have is that they can easily learn to look this way then that way, and that a flashing yellow light on a car means a particular thing, and traffic lights of different colours and shapes mean x, y and z. But there are lots of less defined predictions we (adults) make about what driver actions; having right at the staggered junction, they're likely to then turn immediately left to go effectively straight on; having altered their speed or course slightly in this or that way, they're probably about to do this or that action. This isn't "local knowledge" it's learned behaviour about the behaviour of drivers and motor vehicles. That is slightly different for cyclists and because there are fewer of us, a lot of it is less likely to be shared with non-cyclists.