I’ve had 2 effective responses to nobrash drivers.

1) Wide eyed maniac “You just almost killed 3 people!!!!” to careless driver that overtook me round a blind bend causing me to have to swerve towards a bush to avoid being hit, and the oncoming car to slam the brakes and brush the opposite bush. She hadn’t even saved herself any time, and on a good day would’ve saved 10s overtaking where she did compared to waiting for somewhere sensible.
She did look pretty sorry once it dawned on her how silly she’d been to be fair, more luck than judgement on my part, but it was beyond my levels of self control not to have a go at her over it.

2) Calm wave to a car full of police in advanced stop area “I would’ve expected better from you.”. They looked suitably sheepish.

I love the idea of the Zen approach. Sadly the red mist descends and I behave rather badly. I will try to be better.

If you kick the rear quarter-panel of their car, then it is a more expensive repair for them *

*make sure you have an escape route! just in case they take offence……

This is the advice offered to my mate, former London despatch rider…

+1 for zen.

Whatever you may argue riding with traffic in the UK is pretty wnk IMHO.

Yup, 34yrs of commuting has proved that the Zen way is the best.
A wave & smile would appear to irritate drivers more than a digit being waved. No point in wasting energy getting worked up when most, not all, drivers would ever admit to being in the wrong.
I can also admit to nearly colliding with the odd cyclist(and cars)due to modern cars having larger pillars and creating blind spots. 🙄

tom you are nearly there not the bonnet but the grill for the cabin air intake

I generally go with the middle finger of justice.

I’m quite sure that most recipients drive home, take their licence out of their wallets and leave it on the front seat. They then torch their car on the driveway and vow never to drive again.

I think displeasure is best expressed through the medium of interpretive dance.

I’m gonna have to give this one a go…

This does come up from time to time and the answers always seem to be the same for me. Riding a bike on UK roads shows you how many stressed-out, screwed-up people there are around you. You can’t say anything to change that. Or you can try, but sooner or later someone gets out of the car and storms over at full volume and you’re thinking fast about what to do. So what you say to who, when etc is either down to good judgement, confidence and a calm head, or hopefully not too-bitter experience.

The most stressed cyclists are probably the ones who have traffic skills that may not be as good as they think, who vocalise/gesture their displeasure the most and also aren’t able to get out of the inevitable confrontations with much self-esteem or feeling of remaining in control of a situation. Shouting or being on the end of a verbal beating from mr aggro then posting it on utube isn’t a good release valve for all that. It’s a mental cycle that really isn’t good for you. (amateur psychology BS sorry some truth in it..)

the week before last, two youths entering the road I was on from a side road brakes then accelerated over the junction into my space.

I turned to them and saw they thought it was funny. So, I told them to **** off and spat on their car. I continued on my commute waiving for the reprise, but there was nothing.

I have yet to find my Zen state, if someone acknowledges a bad decision or poor manouvre, fair enough. If they don’t care, nor do I, metal box gives them balls, I will point out what they,ve done wrong.

@ jameso – i think what happens its it that it triggers the adrenaline and the flight or fight response – it is has nothing to do with skills or self esteems IMHO folk react on instinct

JY – it does, but we can overcome instinct. We often should do. Reacting on instinct is ok if it’s in fast-response self defence but at the initial traffic stress/risk/incident stage you should have an element of control over your reactions. After all most road rage is people not having any control and being self-centred, it escalates from there. The esteem bit is normal, if you end up in a situation where you have to leg it from mr angry you won’t feel empowered by that. I also don’t think you should be the streetfighter hero to feel better either, just that remaining in control as far as you can is the aim. That may start by not reacting at all to a simple bit of lame driving. After all, we know it’ll happen..

It’s not just cars…..

on a cyclepath other day and overhearda girl say to her bloke ‘what does he look like !!’

Normal shorts and top but buff over mouth an oakleys with a camo helmet ….(midges everywhere an fed up of eating them)

Still I can take the helmet off but she’s stuck with her fat ass.

the streetfighter hero

Pinnacle Streetfighter Hero – the ultimate commuting weapon of choice?

Ha.. but no )

Someone made the point on one of these threads before that you don’t want to allow yourself to be infected by someone else’s anger…

I find it very hard to take abuse or near-harm without responding but I find I’m better off in myself if I do. There’s too much shocking driving around to get upset by it every time

As lots of people have said already, there’s nothing you can do. Get abusive and you’re just inviting some sort of retaliation from random sociopaths. That said, people tend to be very brave when they’re sat in their car with the door shut and moving along, they get a lot less so when you follow them into a pub car park and explain ever so calmly that they passed way too close.

I’m sure he knew full well his observation skills were inadequate, but resented this being pointed out to him

He probably knew nothing of the sort and didn’t care if he did. The idea that a sizeable proportion of drivers are thinking at all is somewhat optimistic. All the incredibly stupid people at school whose utter lack of common sense and basic intelligence you marvelled at, they’re all out there driving around and they haven’t got any brighter since you last saw them.

There are people out there who can barely control a shopping trolley but are driving about in huge 4x4s. Go figure.

BWD – fair point. I suspect he didn’t like me shaking my head at him cos he didn’t see anything wrong about overtaking into a queue of traffic. Sadly.

Next time you’re in a supermarket, try leaving a gap of about three feet in front of your trolley in the queue for the checkout then marvel at the agitation of the people behind you who haven’t worked out that ramming their trolley into your backside isn’t actually going to get them through the checkout faster.

Or people who are desperate to get on planes first because, er, well, it might go without them? They might run out of seats? Planes are just lovely places to sit and chill?

People just can’t help themselves. They instinctively want to move regardless of the reality of the their actions. Or that’s my half-arsed, quasi-psychological theory anyway… 🙂

+1 on the zen-calm thing. I spent years shouting and swearing at drivers and the only person it affected was me. A withering shake of the head or an incredulous bout of laughter is now my usual reaction to any driver idiocy. If I actually get the chance to talk to them then extreme sarcasm is usually employed.

Or people who are desperate to get on planes first because, er, well, it might go without them? They might run out of seats? Planes are just lovely places to sit and chill?

Planes it’s either first or second last, first because now everyone tries to bring too much hand luggage there isn’t enough space for all the bags.

But for dealing with idiots unless you keep the one liners on the bars it will all happen to quick.

I was out riding with my (76yr old) mum today and we got beeeeeeep-beeeeeeeped at by car coming past up from behind. Granted I was riding a little bit out from the hedgeline, to give her a bit of safe space to move around in, so they did have to go ever-so-slightly-further-out to overtake than had they been overtaking a single cyclist, but we certainly weren’t as wide as if we were two abreast – and as the road was completely clear, with plenty of space (on both sides of the carriageway), and good visibility, beeping and coming close was just being silly.

I just sighed and shook my head slowly, but my mum (aged 76 remember) flipped them a V sign, and shouted rather a long string of colloquially phrased words/terms to describe both the act of reproduction, and female reproductive body parts.

They did slow up, and someone turned and looked out of the back window, but then just drove off. She was certainly not pleased to have been buzzed like that, and made sure they knew it. That’s her normal response, and whist she conceded it probably doesn’t help, she did say she feels better for doing it.

God help them if they ever cut her up when she’s driving her van…