I respect you greatly, Mr. @
Carbonfiberboy, and have about a decade less road-riding experience but sorry ... you don't know how to take a lane.
I take a lane soon enough, and far left enough, that only the stupidest people are ever going to try to pass. I do it when I know there is insufficient visibility for a car to see if the road ahead will be clear long enough overtake me
A car putting two wheels into the opposing lane by three feet will duck back four feet when the driver suddenly sees a car coming head-on---and if the driver was not giving me three feet (which is why I would take a lane--when there is not enough room for a car to pass and leave me enough room to not get forced off the road) then when that driver got fully back into the travel lane, that driver would either hit me, or I would see it all happening and ride off the road---which I have been forced to do, and which is itself a total crap-shoot. I have no idea what might await me off the road, but a lot of times it might be a curb, a ditch, in one case a guard rail---only way not to get hit would have been to go over the rail and down a multi-foot drop.
I have been hit a few times---but never by a passing car. I have been run off the road while NOT taking the lane, which is why I started taking a lane.
Sorry about your friend's situation. I would hazard a guess, however, that there is a reason the Actual Traffic Law allows cyclists to take a lane.
Uniform Traffic Code:
0316.2065
(5)(a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall ride in the lane marked for bicycle use or, if no lane is marked for bicycle use, as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway
except under any of the following situations:
1. When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle proceeding in the same direction.
2. When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
3. When reasonably necessary to avoid any condition or potential conflict, including, but not limited to, a fixed or moving object, parked or moving vehicle, bicycle, pedestrian, animal, surface hazard, turn lane, or
substandard-width lane, which makes it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge or within a bicycle lane. For the purposes of this subsection, a “substandard-width lane” is a lane that is
too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane. (Emphasis added.)
Your disagreement is noted, and naturally, I would not recommend that you do anything you find uncomfortable. However, I will note that the majority of the cycling community including the people who actually wrote the law, disagree with you .... or at least leave taking the lane as a Legal option.
I have only researched about 3/4 of the continental United States, but those states all have either an identical or closely similar law.
As for those drivers---and I have met them---who are willing to completely enter the oncoming traffic lane to overtake a cyclist, even when the driver cannot see around a corner or over a hill .... I still prefer to take the lane if possible, because i then know that those are reckless and careless drivers who will endanger themselves, myself, and any number of other people without thought, and I like having plenty of road to my right to move into when I see the car entering oncoming traffic on my left---and in every case in which that has happened, the driver did indeed cut back across my path, and would have hit me had I not had the extra pavement to pull off a panic braking/turn maneuver.
It is good that the OP sees that there are options, and that taking the lane is not mandatory .... I know we each have many decades of commuting experience, and it cannot hurt to get two views from people who have actually put their philosophies into practice.