Why you should always assume the driver has not seen you

but how can you be sure you've made eye contact??
what if you think you have but the driver is eyeing up some totty a short distance away from you?

Eye contact generally works. As I said, not 100% infallibly, but we just tend to know when we've 'locked eyes' with someone, even at a distance. Quite often, your attempt at making eye contact will of course show that the other person isn't looking your way, in which case again there is no need to assume that they haven't seen you--you can pretty much know it.

Cycle training of course covers this. It's always a good thing even for very experienced riders and under the instruction of a good trainer you can best learn how to put this into practice.