[Closed] Why did I lose it on this morning's commute?

We've had a nice few months of quiet roads and mainly courteous driving. This means that now we're going back to normal the idiots stand out far more than they used to as we're not conditioned to them.

I may have had a rant at a few in the last week.

We’ve had a nice few months of quiet roads and mainly courteous driving. This means that now we’re going back to normal the idiots stand out far more than they used to as we’re not conditioned to them.

Exactly this, girlfriend and I were out the other day - zero traffic ahead or coming the other way and yet the moron behind still felt the need to swerve around us and keep his hand on the horn as we were two abreast.

Wide road, plenty of visibility, no need for it. My heckles rose but I managed to keep in check. We'll get reconditioned soon enough I guess.

Sometimes it just happens. You've done really well to keep it to yourself for ten years. I try to not let bother me but have a mild rant every few weeks. You've got to remember that lockdown is over now for most people and everyone has defaulted to " I am more deserving and f~@k everyone else". Put the chimp back in the box. They have probably forgotten all about it or filed it under " I am more deserving and f@~k him" whilst it is still bothering you. I am making a conscious effort to not let things get to me because if the last 3 months have taught me anything, and I know it a cliche but, life really is too short to let things like that get you down.

heckles

That really got my hackles up.

Also, yes, more entitled knobs out and about on the roads being entitled knobs = more fury.

Not just on the bike either, I was pushing pram through carpark (nó segregated / marked footpath) at local park yesterday and swore at some idiot holding her iPhone and talking while trying park in awkward space with one hand. She seemed surprised I thought she put her ****ing phone down.
Think lots people got used to nobody to get in way or challenge them. The heat and lack of caffeine may have exacerbated my response but still feel it was warranted.

I had a minor shout at someone yesterday that decided it was ok to turn across the full-width of the road to reverse into his drive. Which would have been fine if he hadn't done it right in front of me, meaning I had to take avoiding action as he crossed onto my side of the road right in front of me to do it. Initially I only glared at him but he then shouted to me that it was his driveway he was going into. I let him know that was good to know, as it meant I'd know exactly where to find him if I decided to boot f*ck out of him for trying to kill me. Normally I'd have ignored him however I was going uphill on a TT bike at the time and that hurts!

He's not particularly anti-cyclist as I've seen him do the same when the oncoming traffic was cars (right down to the shouting to folks that he was going into his driveway). For some reason he seems to think it's ok to not wait for an appropriate gap - even if that gap would mean waiting for 5 seconds.

I used to get pretty quickly triggered while commuting too.

Incidents like the OPs pointless overtake really use to wind me up.

My favourite was the non-overtake overtake, you know the one where they see a bike and just go for an overtake, even though you are sat up following a bus, slow car and they have nowhere to go, so they drive alongside you.

I started edging right over to the white line, forcing them to drop back, but it was pretty stupid behavior. Only one of us was likely to be getting hurt and it wasn't the idiot in the car.

So I calmed down a bit and just accepted that half the driver on the roads are idiots who don't look further than the end of their bonnets and let them get on with it. It worked about 90% of the time.

I often find that its short term changes to driving/commuting expectations that cause changes in my response behavior. As said above, the roads have been quiet and we (cyclists) have continued to use them, gradually becoming more used to the empty, pleasant experience with most of the drivers we came across during this time being quite courteous. Sadly, we're starting to return to normal and drivers (who have not been on the roads) are returning and behaving exactly the same as they were if not a little worse (as they're enjoying the freedom/novelty/sun) leading to an expectation gap between us and them.

I also find this to be true if I commute at 08:30 rather than 06:30 - I expect a type of road behavior and that behavior is different at 08:30 and it agitates me.

It also happens in September/October every year after the school holidays and when universities start - it's just a little edgier as everyone gets used to it again.

So long as I recognise these things as they're happening, it's fine, but if not...

I was running down a singletrack country lane yesterday and a white Fiesta came hurtling toward me. I had to push myself into the hedge at the side of the road to avoid being hit by his wing mirror. He didn't even slow down and must've gone past with 20cm to spare at 50mph in a could of dust. Is THIS is the new normal? I hope it's just temporary.

So I calmed down a bit and just accepted that

ALL drivers

on the roads are idiots who don’t look further than the end of their bonnets

^ This

It's difficult but my mental health, and yours, is worth more :o)

People are richards. It's hard not to lose your shit, but try you must.

That's almost exactly like the sequence of events that had me losing it with a cock in a Lexus with his fag arm hanging out the window. Imagine his surprise when we both went into the same office car park. 😛

For me, it's often not the actual act itself that causes the rage - like you I try to just tut at it as losing it never helps - but underlying stress/anger that the act is a release trigger for. I think we're all feeling more stress than usual due to the whole COVID thing, whether consciously or not, so it's not surprising to lose it when an idiot drives their car at you. Plus, one outburst in 10 years is pretty good going!

As others have said, the bad drivers have started to emerge from isolation.

‘Great, stuck behind a bike the whole way down.’

Its hot and that makes most people irritable. How did you sleep?
Have you just started commuting again? Although not sure what would be worse starting commuting after a break or having had several months of really nice quiet roads.
Personally I wouldnt be overly concerned about having one bad day but if it happens several times a week then would be time to think things through properly.

Yeah, I've been ill for a couple of days and it is pretty hot. However, thinking about it, I think the main reason is that I was caught by surprise.

I normally have a good feel for what's going on behind me but in this case the first I realised there was even a car behind me was when I heard the engine reving and by the time I looked round she was already drawing level with me.

I think the noise from the lorry was masking the sound from behind me so I just got a bit of a fright, whereas normally I know when someone behind me is about to do something stupid.

I may have got into a physical altercation with a driver the other day 😳😳😳😳. First time I've lost my rag with someone in years and he was up for a rumble. I have ordered a cheap camera so that I can focus on bothering the police instead and hopefully keep me calm.

I think the try and over take then squeeze is particularly annoying. It happened to me a few days back and i did explain to the driver how I was feeling

Basically he went for an over take but the cars ahead were behind another bike. He gave me loads of space until we got to a traffic island then he came back to the curb

On the plus side. Cruising through a local village at 30 mph (in a car). I get overtaken by a silly impatient person. Then another car passess me all sirens and lights. Before over taking in a 30 limit do check your mirrors for patrol cars 🙂

I've cooled off a lot in recent years but the other day I had a mondeo litteraly "merge" into me from the right, going into some temporary road works on a bend, we were both being held up by a slower cyclist who was well within his rights to be there, I would have caught and passed him in the space of the works where there wasn't enough room for cars to pass either of us.

As we come intro the cones section they just casually drove into the side of me, so I just knocked on the door and shouted "what the **** are you doing?" a reasonable enquiry I thought, but the passenger looked dumbfounded. I had to pull on the anchors and let the ****er bully their way through. And then they just sat behind the other cyclist, me on the rear bumper giving them evils. They definitely saw me and still went for the "pass".

It only occurred to me after they actually had three clear choices and lots of time to pick the right one;

A) Brake and wait behind me and the other bike for 50ish yards,
B) carry on at ~15mph, realise they were endangering me and clip some cones to avoid me or,
C) consciously decide to squash someone on a bicycle just so they were in a position to sit behind another, even slower cyclist.

They chose 'C'... ****s!

CV19 appears to have bought out the very best in Britain's drivers...

15+ years of cycle commuting in London

I only really lost it once

-guy in Chelsea tractor impatient for me to pass junction so he could pull out (I wasn't going slow either), revved and jerked forward as I passed I had to swerve out into other lane, was just lucky there were no oncoming cars.
We'd just had our 2nd kid & I was sleep deprived.
I blocked him off & swore at him for 5 minutes, till I realized his kid was in the back & then I felt like a total ****!

Sometimes you just need to vent

The last couple of weeks as lockdown has eased (or broken down completely depending on your POV) has really brought the morons out in force.

I'm hoping that they're normally the people who are at football matches, in the pub or in a shopping centre and things might calm down a bit but I nearly binned off a road ride the other night when I had 4 instances of close passing / abuse in as many miles.

Was made up for though when I eased off / pulled in fractionally to wave past a car behind. Drew level, 4 lads in it (early 20's maybe). Oh ****, here we go again....
4 lots of thumbs up out the windows - "stay safe", "top man", "cheers mate!"

That made up for the utter bellend earlier who'd told me to stay in the cycle lane (oh, you mean the bit of paint that I'm actually in anyway and you still have the entire ****ing road to overtake me in...?)

I've stopped bike commuting due to getting too wound up. I figure that if this government/this country can't provide the infrastructure or fellow road users with the ability to deal with cyclists in a safe manner then why should I risk my life to reduce the country's overall CO2 level? I don't need to do from a cost saving or health POV - I used to genuinely enjoy bike commuting in all weathers but not any more.

How you react is simply your personality or other stuff in your life coming out. Aggressive reactions come from you, not their actions. Bad driving isn't a challenge to you personally. You know there's bad drivers out there and you know you can't change everyone's behavior. You can only change how you protect yourself with defensive and aware riding and how you react to situations. Not reacting aggressively leaves you in a much better state of mind.

....either a load of hippy BS or the only way some of us can ride on UK roads and not end up in a fight at the roadside. From time to time I will have a word with someone but I try to think it through a moment first and in that time a lot of situations are passed anyway. I remember reading how 'everyone in life is dealing with stuff that you can't know about'. That helps explain a lot of the lead-footed dickhead driving you see, it's also about their personality, stress levels and stuff in their life coming out - it's not about you. The rest is just stupidity. It is shit but that's the country we live in, not news is it.

I always knew you were secretly a hippy James 😉

It's just what I was told on the 3rd rage management course.

I can tell you one thing; whenever someone tells me what I should do, I almost always do the opposite. I have been that way for as long as I can remember. In some psychology class years back, I learned about the theory of psychological reactance. It all boils down to an idea that people believe that they possess freedoms and the ability to participate in those free-behaviors. When those behaviors are threatened, something within us is sparked and we react. I find myself pretty apprehensive when it comes to telling anyone what they should be doing. For that matter, I mostly, don’t care what anyone else is doing. A person’s true character comes out regardless. You are what you do.

https://theradavist.com/2020/06/zhaawani-noodin-there-is-a-south-wind-a-response-to-the-name-dirty-kanza/
- similar thing I think

How you react is simply your personality or other stuff in your life coming out. Aggressive reactions come from you, not their actions.

Bollocks is it, its 95% adrenalin, someone put you in a dangerous situation and you are hard wired to fight. If the person who caused the adrenalin spike then starts having a go at you for riding a bike or whatever then an aggressive respinse is likely. I'm not saying its right and we can all try to stop it, but it does happen.

Bollocks is it, its 95% adrenalin, someone put you in a dangerous situation and you are hard wired to fight.

Or flight. It does happen but you can control it, especially if you recognise that there's more to your reaction than the adrenaline and the moment. ie, it is about your personality or mental state to a greater extent. People can and do ignore all that and just go through life all reactive and unthinking though.

you can control it, especially if you recognise that there’s more to your reaction than the adrenaline and the moment. ie, it is about your personality or mental state to a greater extent.

Yes you can control it of course, but the control and your present mental state is the 5%. That why I expect people are more likely to drive like ****s now and cyclists more likely to react, the current situation has increased our stress so the adrenaline is more likely to push us over the edge.

It's just as Jameso says, everyone has stuff going on and in the last few months it's been even more intense, it's easy to let something unconnected trigger a release of the stress from everywhere else.

As others say, bad drivers have always been there, i see it every day in the car and on the bike, it'll never stop, well unless audi and BMW stop selling white cars!

Try and always avoid being on the roads if I can but with Covid I have ended up doing a bit more exploring of the local areas away from the main woods due to the heards of new people. The one thing I do do which I would say definitely helps is to block and wave on to the car behind with hand signals if I can see a little be further than the car behind. Most drivers realise what I’m doing the very second a car comes around the corner after I’ve signaled to them And will pass (when clear) with a wider margin and friendly honk/wave/hazards on.

Unfortunately there is always one or two that don’t believe me and go for the overtake only to find a car coming head on to them (que trying to pull in me and me showing them how I shake dice). I do think the less traffic has meant that the d**k driver have stood out more and that they have more opportunity to drive like idiots.

He’s not particularly anti-cyclist as I’ve seen him do the same when the oncoming traffic was cars (right down to the shouting to folks that he was going into his driveway). For some reason he seems to think it’s ok to not wait for an appropriate gap – even if that gap would mean waiting for 5 seconds.

Can I give you the other perspective on this....

I live on a standard suburban road in South Manchester. I can either drive forwards into my drive or backwards. It is very narrow. If I reverse in then I can drive safely back out next time with a full view of the traffic. If I drive in forwards then I would have to reverse out the next day with about 4m of vehicle sticking out across the pavement into the road with absolutely zero visibility of what is going on.

So I reverse in, always.

Most of the time this is fine, but any time between 4pm and 6:30 the road becomes quite busy, including people going way too fast.

Sometimes I have to wait ages before there is s pause in traffic, which is fine.

But the whole manoeuvre takes a while to do and often someone will arrive on the scene as I am lining up to the drive and effectively blocking the road. They weren't there when I started, there is good visibility at least 120m both ways. They drive aggressively towards me without really moderating their speed, somehow expecting me do disapear.

It's not going to happen, just ****in wait.

The one thing I do do which I would say definitely helps is to block and wave on to the car behind with hand signals

This ^^
It means being very proactive with traffic and it's quite mentally tiring, basically doing a driver's thinking for them but it does mitigate a lot of the shit behaviour. They can see you're trying to help them (well, most of them, most of the time).

Is the elephant in the room not the huge over reaction of the OP? He was getting wound up because a truck dared to use the same road as him and didn't go fast enough (whilst admitting he frequently goes above the speed limit). Then some one pulled a relatively minor dick move (gave plenty of space, only caused him to dab the brakes) which led to the OP going apeshit, dishing out foul mouthed abuse and admitting he would have assulted the bloke if tipped further.

Put the OP in a car and he's Ronnie Pickering.

If I were you Bruce I'd keep an eye on myself with a view to having a session or two with a counselor as that kind of anger and reaction is not normal. Sounds like a few more on this thread should do the same.

I've just lost my shit with a pedestrian who was clearly fancying an argument today.

The last half mile of my ride home is a nasty little stretch of road but it has a quiet footpath on each side so I just hop on there to avoid the inevitable close pass. There's rarely anyone walking on it but when there is it's easy to pass if both parties are sensible.

Today I'm riding towards a couple (in their fifties I reckon), all it takes is for one of them to move over into single file for the brief time it takes to get past, I'm not riding like a dick, I make eye contact and slow down to a walking pace but billy-big-bollocks isn't moving. I can't move over as his wife is on that side so I'm left with no option but to stop. He proceeds to walk straight at me and stop in front.
Me: whats up mate, is there a problem?
dick: you're cycling on a footpath, it's not allowed.
Me: yeah well I'm not riding on that road, it's too busy and I've had many incidents in the past so I don't feel safe.
dick: I don't care, this is a footpath and you must yield right of way to pedestrians

It's at this point I realise I'm dealing with a complete bell-end who is just out for an argument.

Me: Look, whatever, it's not really causing a problem is it? unless you decide to make it one, all you had to do was step aside for a moment, why go out your way to be awkward?
dick: because it's my right of way, why didn't you move over?
Me: because your missus was on that side of the path, did you want me to just ride into her? Listen mate, you're clearly a massive bell-end leading a miserable existence, you're an embarassment to your wife, (she's walked away at this point) why dont you just * off and get a *ing life.

I then went into full-on rant mode and came so close to just smacking him right in the face, I havent had a fight in over 20 years and I had to mentally restrain myself - so pleased I did as I could have well been on an assault charge now (or beaten up). I'm now really annoyed with myself for not controlling my anger better, should have just had a bit fun with the sanctimonious old **** and wound him up rather than winding myself up.

I just really hope he tries this shit with someone with less self control.

Yes agree the hand signalling to drivers is usually very good around narrow country lanes and most of the drivers are appreciative and courteous. Last week going up Gwern y Steeple which for those that don't know it is a fairly steep and narrow climb. A Fiesta came screaming past me beeping horn so I gave him the finger then he had to brake as car coming head on. I usually just let it go. The passenger - young lad - hang out of the window and said he was going to get out and smash my f**ing head in then called me a fat c*** but ended shouting it in a young lady cyclist in front of me, before speeding off.

As I passed they lady I apologised as he was hurling it at me not her!

I know an otherwise lovely chap who sees the worst in every situation so confrontations can and do end in violance.
From the outside it seems ridiculous but to him, that person has just tried to kill him with his car or was definitely going to mug him etc.

The one thing I do do which I would say definitely helps is to block and wave on to the car behind with hand signals

I disagree, I wave to stop people from overtaking at the wrong time, but I never wave another person past, I ignore cu list who do it for me when driving too, if I cant see I wait. Your hand waving doesnt convince me.

@mdavids - His wife's reaction tells you all you need to know about him. After months of lock down we are all a bit stressed leading to us lossing our cool, he on the other hand 'has to be in the right'at all times leading to constant confrontation which even his wife doesn't back him up on.

Is the elephant in the room not the huge over reaction of the OP?

I don't think so at all. Cyclist has done nothing wrong. He's held back from a large vehicle to give himself room to manoeuvre, looked for a safe overtaking opportunity and some tit in a car has done a Must Get In Front move.

Drivers do this all the ****ing time. Not looking at the road in front for width restrictions, traffic ahead, junctions, lights etc, they've just seen a cyclist and without even thinking about the circumstances gone "it's a bike, bikes are slow, I must get in front".

And the screwed up the move completely, endangered the cyclist for no reason at all and gained absolutely nothing.
Simple test: would the driver have done that move if the OP had been in a car? Same speed, same road position 10-15m behind a lorry. No. Therefore the driver is in the wrong.

Did the rider overreact? No idea, I wasn't there. But for me a reaction is usually a combination of factors including "last straw" type stuff where a move might not be the worst ever but it's just been the cherry on the cake of shit driving that's tipped me over the edge.

Victim blaming the cyclist isn't helping matters.

Is the elephant in the room not the huge over reaction of the OP? He was getting wound up because a truck dared to use the same road as him and didn’t go fast enough (whilst admitting he frequently goes above the speed limit). Then some one pulled a relatively minor dick move (gave plenty of space, only caused him to dab the brakes) which led to the OP going apeshit, dishing out foul mouthed abuse and admitting he would have assulted the bloke if tipped further.

I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder so I've had many counselling sessions over the years. This has nothing to do with my BPD.

You sound like someone who either doesn't commute by bike or one of those people who seem to have taken their lack of situational awareness from their car to their bike. I see many people who cruise around and I have no idea how they are still alive.

First things first. I didn't get wound up by getting stuck behind the lorry. It's traffic, it happens. If I started getting wound up every time I was held up by other road users I would have long ago died of a heart attack.

Secondly, I don't break the speed limit on the bike because, believe it or not, speed limits don't apply to us. That's why we aren't required by law to have speedometers. Was I guilty of Wanton and Furious Cycling (my favourite name for a law ever, by the way)? Perhaps. If drivers stop exceeding the speed limit by 'just' 5 mph then I'll stop as well. How's that?

Now, the 'relatively minor dick move'. This is what makes me think you either don't commute by bike or you are so blissfully unaware of your surroundings that when you're on your bike you're a danger to yourself and others.

It is NEVER relatively minor when a car squeezes you. Yes all I had to do was dab the brakes. I've been riding on the road for decades. If I was a new cyclist what happens if I panic and jam the brakes on and crash? What happens if I don't know what to do and just let myself get squeezed into the kerb and crash, possibly going under their wheels?

Even as experienced cyclist, while I'm dealing with this dangerous situation that I've been put in, I'm not paying attention to potholes. I'm not paying attention to pedestrians on the pavement. I'm not looking at the approaching junction. All I'm doing is paying attention to the **** who is putting my life in danger.

And yeah, if he had grabbed me I would have done my absolute best to break his arm. Do you even realise how vulnerable you are when you are in a confrontation with someone in a car. If he gets hold of you, turns to the driver and says 'floor it', can you imagine just how much of a state you'd be in after getting dragged up the road for a couple of hundred meters? If anyone tries to grab you from inside a car then drop with all your weight onto their arm against the windowsill. Or take your chances that the driver doesn't feel like seriously injuring or killing you today.

In my counselling sessions we tried inducing guilt. He tried using my conflicts on the road to make me feel guilty but I have absolutely no guilt about any confrontation I've had with any driver (I had plenty of other confrontations that I do feel guilty about).

If you're in a car you hold all the cards in a confrontation with a cyclist or a pedestrian. You're safe from any retaliation and you can safely escape at any point. You are in the conflict because you want to be there. You have a weapon that you can use to kill the cyclist or pedestrian anytime you feel like. I know people who have been intentionally rammed by people in cars. It happens regularly and few people ever pay the price for it.

Like I said, I don't know if you don't commute or if you have just taken your car driving mentality onto two wheels and are blissfully unaware of what's going on around you. Either way, you don't seem to know what you're talking about.

You are right, I do not commute on my bike and avoid busy roads as much as possible.

Regardless of this I do not put myself in situations where it could escalte in to violence if at all possible. What did you abusive response achieve? By the sounds of it a possible assult charge for either you or the geezer you were shouting at. Were they in the wrong? Yes. Did your response improve the situation, make you safer or change the attitude of the driver? No.

Accuse me of what you want, it's water off a ducks back but the thread title kind of points to the fact that you know you over reacted.

Is the elephant in the room not the huge over reaction of the OP?

Totally agree . If you really want to know why you did it go and see a shrink otherwise asking on a forum comes across as if you are proud of yourself and wanting others to justify your actions , which many will do because it's a cycling forum and there is a certain perceived bond .

Actually, writing things out is helping me figure it out. One thing I mentioned earlier was that I was caught by surprise. I can normally tell by the engine pitch when there's a stupid pass coming. In this case the noise from the lorry covered the sound of the car until it was beside me.

The other thing is that squeezing someone on a bike is almost the worst thing a driver can do. The only thing worse is intentionally ramming you.

Most other incidents can be put down to lack of attention, either a misjudgment or a momentary lapse.

Squeezing is basically saying, 'move or I will run you over.' There's nothing momentary about it, this is someone who doesn't even view you as a proper human being. Your life is nothing to them.

In the last ten years most incidents can be put down to lack of attention so it's easier to brush them off. Any dodgy passes I've heard it coming and eased off to give them space to pull back in. It means I haven't been squeezed in the last ten years.

I wasn't asking if I was right to lose my shit. I know I wasn't. But starting this thread has helped me figure out why it happened.

You are right, I do not commute on my bike and avoid busy roads as much as possible.

Well, I guess it's always nice to get the point of view of someone who doesn't ride in traffic much. The worst thing is you probably speak for the majority of drivers, which is what makes your comment about squeezing being a 'relatively minor dick move' particularly depressing.

I called it a relatively minor dick move because that’s exactly what your description suggested. You said they gave you plenty of room and the only action you had to take was to dab your brakes.

I’m going to leave it there as you seem to be itching for a flare up and from reading this thread it won’t be the first time. Take care of yourself.

I’m going to leave it there as you seem to be itching for a flare up and from reading this thread it won’t be the first time.

Another way of saying, 'You're obviously too mental to have a rational conversation so I'm going to stop talking to you'.

I notice you didn't quote anything from me showing me itching for a fight. From what you wrote I assumed you didn't have any experience of what we're discussing here. You admitted you didn't and then instead of holding your hands up and saying, 'Fair enough, maybe I should try commuting for a while and see if I can figure out where you are all coming from and why so many people who ride bikes in traffic occasionally start acting like total lunatics.'

Since you don't seem to want to give it a try, let me walk you through the three stages of the bicycle commuter:

Stage 1, What am I doing wrong?: You can't understand what you are doing wrong. Surely you must be doing something wrong because you seem to be getting in every driver's way and many of them act as if you don't even exist. You buy more lights, you dress yourself head to toe in high-vis, you read the Highway code repeatedly trying to figure out the obscure rules you are missing that every driver seems to know. Slowly, you start to realise that maybe the problem isn't you.

Stage 2, RAGE!:By this point you have realised the extent of the ignorance on the road and it makes you ANGRY. You double down on your lights, adding a 2000 lumen flashing light and a 4000 lumen head torch to point at people who are thinking about pulling out on you at a junction. You buy a GoPro and start a Youtube channel, maybe even a blog. Every infringement results in you screaming abuse at the driver. At some point you start to realise that maybe you are looking for trouble more than trouble happening to you.

Stage 3, Transcendence: You decide that getting into confrontations just isn't worth it and instead double down on riding defensively. You find that you seem to have a sixth sense for when someone is going to pull out on you in a junction or when someone is going to try a stupid overtake. You remember that you ride bikes because you enjoy it rather than to try to make a political statement. You find a sarcastic comment to yourself makes you feel better than any number of middle fingers and rants.

Most people who don't make it beyond Stage 1 don't continue riding. They get back in their cars and continue to be perplexed how anyone could ever consider riding a bike in traffic.

Many people never get out of Stage 2. See Youtube.

I reckon I transcended about 10 years ago. The other day I relapsed to stage 2 and it took me by surprise. After writing on here I think I've figured out why and I can use that understand what's going on around me better in the future.

For someone who doesn't commute or who tried it for a while but never got beyond Stage 1 I can see why the reactions of someone in Stage 2 could look like mental health issues. The unfortunate thing is that the reactions of someone in stage 2 is entirely appropriate. It's just that the level of inattentiveness and ignorance on the road is such that an appropriate reaction to someone almost killing you becomes inappropriate because it happens all the time.

Anyway, I hope my mental rant wasn't too much and you maybe learned something.

Is the elephant in the room not the huge over reaction of the OP?

No it's not the elephant in the room it's literally the title of the thread

Secondly if you've not been squeezed it's hard to imagine quite how awful it feels. Oh and it really could result in life changing injuries even at low speed.

I've learnt a lot from this thread. I wonder if I could have stayed calm and then found away to talk to the driver calmly about what he'd done.

I am generally a very calm person.

...minor dick move...

The issue I think is that poor judgement/ intentional disregard for vulnerable road users is condoned. Getting mad when someone has almost killed/ maimed you with a dangeraous weapon makes you the bad guy, not the person performing the dangerous act.

If a gardener was trimming their hedge which was overhanging a public footpath, saw a person apporaching but couldn't be bothered to wait for 30 seconds. If they kept swinging their power trimmer around extremely close to the person walking past would peole be justifying the perpetrator's actions and blaming the sufferer?

Motor vehicle drivers who do not take their responibilities seriously need to have their freedom curtailed with punitive fines and presumed liabilty. This will not affect the resonsible/ reponsible drivers, it will make those with no care take more care and remove from the road those who do not change their ways.

You were right to be angry, voicing that anger could put you in a more vulnerable position, society needs to stop defending the actions of wreckless drivers with victim blaming.