Mandela Effect.
People
believe they know something, despite getting it wrong on associations and details. But because of peer pressure and intellectual laziness they never question their own assumptions.
As a kid in the 1960s schools attempted to teach rudimentary lessons in how to be a decent human being. They called it "civics." That included teaching kids to walk facing traffic. Presumably so they could jump out of the way of murderous members of their "community" barging around maliciously in their death machines. In drivers ed I don't recall any lessons teaching drivers to be decent human beings and not run over slower pedestrians and cyclists.
Anyway, as a result of those lessons about walking facing traffic, which most people wake-slept through, they halfway remember something about facing traffic and assume it applies to cyclists too.
I encountered that same misapprehension from a friend who's my age (both born in the late 1950s). I occasionally see him outside when I'm coming home from bike rides and stop to chat awhile. He mentioned that same mistake about riding facing traffic. I told him that applies only to pedestrians and, in most states, cyclists are supposed to operate like motor vehicles.
Same reason why some drivers holler "Get on the sidewalk!" at cyclists. Never mind that there are very few sidewalks in suburbs that were built to take advantage of personal transportation.
And the misunderstanding is reinforced by people riding bikes pretty much the way most people walk -- opportunistically. To minimize our risk from reckless drivers, most of us walk with little or no regard to official guidlines -- crosswalks, intersections and walk lights. It makes no sense to cross at an intersection where the walk signal coincides with signals to drivers that it's okay to turn right on red and left against traffic on yellow. So pedestrians are competing with death machines coming from different directions. Effectively the walk signal means nothing. So for our own safety we'll "jaywalk" by choosing a place in the middle of the block to cross where we have a clear view in two directions (rather than four at the typical intersection), a median strip as a safe zone, etc.
In my area most folks on bicycles wouldn't self-identify as "cyclists." The bike is just a way to get around that's a little faster than walking. But they ride their bikes the same way most of us walk -- opportunistically. They'll ride on the sidewalk for awhile wherever a sidewalk is available. They'll ride facing traffic for awhile, then dart diagonally across an intersection, dodging vehicles, and ride with traffic for awhile, then cut through a parking lot, etc.
It might seem reckless to casual observers, and sometimes it is reckless. But if you study them closely enough, it's mostly opportunistic, trying to read the patterns of vehicle traffic and riding to suit conditions.