Intentionally slowing down and blocking traffic is an offense. If you are impeding the free flow of traffic, you may need to pull over. Where this is not possible, then its a different situation (ie, no shoulder or other hazard). But as a general rule, these are also places you should avoid ex-ante if you know will you will be obstructing traffic with reasonable foresight.
That might be a devil's advocate stance, but its not without merit. It amazes me how much arrogance and lack of street smarts many cyclists have (at least on the internet). I bike in urban areas and in rural ones. But people who are jerks <cause> accidents at a disproportionate rate. And its not just the drivers.
On the flip side, cars and suvs are driving faster and more dangerous (as they are larger) than years ago. That's a real problem. But a different issue. IMHO.
If you dead stop and block a lane, you are breaking the law. And I see it plenty of times every day with delivery drivers, who also treat cycle paths as extended parking spaces.
Not riding the speed limit is simply not breaking a "traffic law", and I can not the imagine the state of delusion you have to be in to think it is.
You should probably at least google something before you immediately claim its made up. Oh but wait that would be using common sense
In a dense city like Barcelona, the traffic doesn't go so fast, and I can usually keep up with most cars, except when accelerating from lights. That doesn't matter. If a car is behind, me they seem to think they have a right to drive too close and honk their horn at me to tell me to get out of the road, even though they will be stuck behind the car that is 20 meters ahead of me.
You have to realize that if a driver hits another car going 20 mph in city traffic chances are no one will be seriously hurt. Someone will likely get a ticket between $50 and $200 and their insurance goes up. Now when you throw a bike in that accident the rider is likely going to be seriously injured if not killed. No one wants to be in a situation where they have to worry about seriously hurting or killing someone. Most drivers simply want to get around the biker and avoid it but bikers don't make that easy and many of them act like they own the road. You just have to remember as a cyclists that you are the one who chose to put your safety at risk by riding in traffic.
I agree with your point, but to be fair, you could make a similar point about cyclists pulling over to let traffic pass. There are cases where overtaking is difficult for long distances, and in practice it's not realistic for a car to go at 10-15 mph behind a bike for miles at a time. For one thing, you risk drivers behind trying to overtake multiple vehicles at once.
There has to be some sort of accommodation, at least in that limited case where passing is difficult, and cyclists moving slower than the flow of traffic. Although clearly that doesn't legitimize risking someone's life.
Edit: Added second paragraph.
That said, noone guaranteed you could drive the speed limit. You will be surprised what is possible in practice if your considerations don't include to blatantly disregard other peoples safety.
Things are definitely far more difficult to balance, simply because there are also many places where the road conditions don't allow a cyclist to exist safely (no shoulder, high speed limit, and less than 300ft visibility).