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.
