I don’t know why I’m writing this, it’s probably to warn others to be careful, especially if you have a temper.
Yesterday after a few hours mtbiking, heading home to find the local roads were gridlocked (a wartime grenade was found in a nearby canal and needed to be detonated, meaning many roads were closed nearby).
Someone close passed me and passed ever closer to nbt (this was on a road that was further on and a lot clearer). nbt shouted and the Mondeo driver stopped, opened his door and threatened us. The driver, male, about mid 60’s and lets say a ‘little unfit looking’, promptly got back in his vehicle when nbt turned his bike around to ask what the problem was. The driver shouts ‘I’ll get you’, luckily a mini had passed and mister Mondeo was trapped behind it, with no chance to ram his car at us. Being on mtbikes we nipped easily onto a nearby track and got safely home.

It felt like an out of body experience and quite frightening. It’s laughable now but a livid man in a hot saloon having been trapped in traffic for hours is not a nice human being.

There’s a lot of it about. Glad for you that it didn’t escalate 🙂

Sadly the worlds has far too many tossers.

I was filtering along through static traffic yesterday and a car passenger shouted at me for going over a zebra crossing. There were no pedestrians on the crossing or waiting to cross.
She shouted “just coz you’re on a f*ing bike doesn’t mean you don’t have to stop!”
I’m so confused, I can’t get any kind of understanding of her point of view.

You did the right thing getting out of the way. The last time someone threatened me in a similar manner I smashed their rear light array in with my foot. Not my proudest moment and if the fella hadn’t have got back in his car and locked the doors (after attempting to run me over and threatening me) then it would’ve been him on the receiving end.

Really pisses me off but I now let it slide. It’s the big and tough whilst in the car thing that I find particularly vexing. Glad you’re both okay

Been there myself – forced off the road (literally) by an angry van driver whose justification was ‘you were holding me up’ (immediately after forcing me off the road he pulled into a pub car park where I confronted him so got to hear his reasoning before I punched him in the face).

Many times since I have wished I’d taken an alternative course of action to the one I did.

As said above – some mad idiots around.

Glad you’re ok.

Missing the part where you passed a description of the vehicle and driver to the Police though? Easy to say with hindsight I know.

You might not be the first person this has happened to, it might create a record that supports another later incident.

It will keep happening till these idiots get dealt with, and they won’t get dealt with if no one reports it. The first part of the solution to this is in our own hands.

You did the right thing getting out of the way. The last time someone threatened me in a similar manner I smashed their rear light array in with my foot. Not my proudest moment and if the fella hadn’t have got back in his car and locked the doors (after attempting to run me over and threatening me) then it would’ve been him on the receiving end.

I know loads on here will disagree but I think that this type of action is totally justified and probably the only thing that a driver like that understands. He’ll be highly unlikely to repeat his actions.

MCTD – you are correct. However we have no evidence (didn’t get a reg plate id). With this kind of scenario one’s brain is in a fight or flight mode and not always with rational thinking. I just wanted to get away from him. Luckily nbt stayed calm.
We have a camera on our tandem and have submitted video to authorities several times over the years. The last resulted in some action being taken against a driver.

Yeah I try and adopt the Ogmios approach now, letting problems flow by without affecting me.

I was once on my road bike and got to a mini roundabout with three appraoches, the other two had cars on, all stopped waiting for each other.
I waited about 10 seconds more, then when nobody went, i slowly rolled out making eye contact with the drivers. The one to my right took umbridge at this and drove aggressively over the centre of the mini roundabout on purpose to come into conflict with me. He then winds down the window and starts shouting that “I was in his way”, “**** cyclists” “road tax” and all the usual shit.

I said “okay mate, it’s called a roundabout, you’re supposed to go round it”. He didn’t have an answer to this as he was so clearly in the wrong. So he decided to follow me, repeatedly overtaking me then brake testing and swerving in close to me.

After probably (in reality) about a couple of minutes (seemed like a lot longer at the time!) he got bored and zoomed off, but it did occur to me when the adrenaline had worn off that he could have had a kinfe or hammer or whatever in the car. Proper psycho.

it did occur to me when the adrenaline had worn off that he could have had a kinfe or hammer or whatever in the car. Proper psycho.

Funny you should write exactly that. I was commuting home once along Oxford street and filtering through completely stationary traffic, when a driver in a VW swung right for no reason other than to force me to smack into the central reservation.

I banged on the window, at which point he opened the door, grabbed a hammer he had in the passenger footwell, and said “this is why I keep this in the car”.

Made me realise that no matter how angry I am, there’s plenty of drivers who could definitely outdo me on the psycho front 🙁 …

As tempting as it is, there’s not much point! I used to love a good ding dong with some w4nker driver, but you rarely get an apology or change the way they think.

I have noticed that with what has gone in the last 12 months people just aren’t thinking straight, they are a different version of who they were. My advice would be to just leave it as it’s just not worth it! Even if the guy swung at NBT with a bat and NBT chinned him, he falls, fractures his skull on the kerb (it happens!!) it’s just a pain in the ar5e you don’t need!! Tempting as it can be…..very tempting!

It will keep happening till these idiots get dealt with, and they won’t get dealt with if no one reports it. The first part of the solution to this is in our own hands.

True – I’ve reported a couple of incidents over the years and will coincidentally be sending another one today, but I only log the worst driving otherwise I’d be doing a couple every time I went out on the road. Round here (Surrey/Hants) I’ve never heard anything back so have no idea if any action has ever been taken.

There are always a few ****.

I remember one of the first times this happened to me, in the early 90’s – a white van close passed me and my mate on a deserted A road in Shropshire. We flicked the V’s, so he screeched to a halt, slammed it into reverse, and aimed straight for us, sending us diving into the verge.

We were a couple of scrawny 13 year olds, he was a grown adult. Nothing changes.

Made me realise that no matter how angry I am, there’s plenty of drivers who could definitely outdo me on the psycho front 🙁 …

The Kenneth Noye principle.

You never know what kind of nutjob you’re messing with.

This morning on my way to work and along one of the few bits of road (route into work is mostly shared ped./cyclists path) I had to tap on a woman’s window to get her attention as she was driving into the gap between me her and the edge of the road making the space narrower and narrower, I don’t think she doing it on purpose she hadn’t realised I was there at all!  She wound down the window, and before i could say anything just shouted at me about threatening her, calling the cops, how dare I touch her car all the normal nonsense but just 10 on the anger scale right from the outset…I thought “wow if you’re that angry, this early in the morning…” and just ignored it.

Had it on a road ride down a country lane where an early 20’s lad with his girlfriend on board, had the opportunity to pull into a wider bit as we approached each other. He didn’t and came really close to me – nowhere for me to go as hedge-bank – so I threw up an arm and called him a t**t to make my displeasure known. He seemed to then slightly touch the far bank at low speed, stopped and got out heading towards me f’n and jeff’n. He was in the wrong entirely but felt the need to escalate – maybe “save face” with GF as he’d effectively crashed his car slightly?

Either way as he got really aggressively close I did think about just going all in, with my big mate starting to come back for support, but then remembered reading news a couple of day’s earlier about a knife incident. I also had slippy carbon shoes and so decided it just wasn’t worth the risk.

Spent the rest of the ride getting PBs wishing I’d decked him though grrrr.

Maybe we need a psychologist along to explain why a normally amiable person turns into seething red faced lunatic once they get in a vehicle and come across a cyclist.

From my commuting years and many bike types over those years, I can confirm that commuting on a bmx results in far more

seething red faced lunatic

action than on other bikes.

OP – good work on not letting it escalating further. Better to ride off and get some PRs to let of steam than get into a scuffle.

Maybe we need a psychologist along to explain why a normally amiable person turns into seething red faced lunatic once they get in a vehicle and come across a cyclist.

Small dicks. IANAP

A couple of years ago a group of us were riding up the Burway (20% gradient) up onto Long Mynd. A van came up behind and had to wait a minute til it was safe to pass, and the guy in the passenger seat was leaning out of his window thumping the side of van and screaming about “effing cyclists!”.
After they had overtaken us, I rode up that hill as hard as I could, composing angry responses that I thought I should’ve shouted at them. Finally I passed them, sitting in deck chairs by their parked van. Thankfully all my anger was spent in riding ferociously up the hill and I decided not to confront them, which could have ended very badly!

I had one a few years ago, crossing the Suspension Bridge in Bristol.
Lovely mid week afternoon, lovely spot (For a suburb) Close pass, I shouted, he then tried to drive me into the curb which has the added bonus of having the structure of the bridge to contend with. I managed at this point to add some additional curves to his mid level BMW’s wing while he spat his chewing gum at me.. Nice chap.. Thankfully this was all on The Bridge CCTV. The police did follow up. Made him come back to Bristol from Essex, did talk to his employer and added his reg to a watch list.. He probably just hates cyclists even more now. It’s all about ego isn’t it. These people see themselves as driving gods and goddesses. Their ego can’t take the fact that anyone else has an alternate view.
That and that they are possibly so bogged down in stress and whatever is going on in their world they have zero empathy with anyone else.

We were a couple of scrawny 13 year olds, he was a grown adult. Nothing changes.

Aged about 14 (mid 80s) I was cycling home from school when a Transit full of blokes ran me off the road. Instinctively I just shook my fist and thought nothing of it. Went round the next corner and a bloke is running full pelt at me out of a small side turning (white van man, properly vexed) who proceeded to pull me off my bike, headbutt me and throw me to the floor. He also threatened a woman pushing a pram who came to try to help me. Him, mid 30s, me, 14. Hope he was proud of himself. Strangely it’s given me a ‘f##k you’ attitude to motorists now, even nearly 40 years on. Odd how these things affect you.

Unfortunately I find it only takes one tiny incident to ruin an otherwise great ride.

I am weirdly (and probably wrongly) calm about careless driving but actions that are deliberate like punishment passes etc (or worse) are infuriating.

A couple of years ago I would regularly cycle in a group made up of a guy from the RAF Regiment, a couple of marines (one who is now in the SBS) and several firefighters and we would still regularly get verbally abused by fat bald guys in their 60’s as they passed us in a clapped out van, amazing really.

Do we think that more cyclists on the road in general will make matters better or worse?

I can’t figure out whether if cycling becomes more normal drivers will take exception to it less or if more cyclists will just mean more aggravated drivers?

I cannot compute how people will stop and get out of their vehicle, thus costing them time, because someone has (in their eyes) caused them a few seconds delay…
Many years ago when I was a 29 year old scrawny student a knackered old open truck came past me driven by a bloke with his hand on his horn who then turned left in front of me forcing me to crash. He stopped to tell me it was my fault as I was riding with my hands on the tops of the drop bars so couldn’t brake quickly enough to avoid him when he cut me up, and offered to take me down to his yard to discuss it further. I dusted myself off and got out of the way sharpish. If he’d taken his foot off the loud pedal for 5 seconds and turned left behind me he’d have got to work quicker… if that happened now I hope I’d have the presence of mind to call the cops

Been there a handful of times, both on bike and in car. It shakes you up, but don’t let it get you down too much.

So….nbt?? All I’ve got is National Bank of Tajikistan but I doubt they came on a ride with you.

I was once chased by an angry overweight chap who thought he could outrun my cycling, can’t remember what happened I sped off, I was about 10. All I remember was lots of huffing and puffing, him not me.

Actually a couple of years ago we were cycling downhill and a bmw cut us up, I shouted and noticed a child in the back. Chap stopped, I thought he s going to have a go, but he got out and shook my hand to apologise to us. In spain there are cops everywhere and loads of cyclists so just not worth getting angry.

I once got threatened by a hammer on Ealing Broadway cycle commuting, I really feel sorry for Mr angry, he ll do it to the wrong person 1 day.

nbt = (OP)bunnyhop’s other half. Notoriously Bad Typist is how he used to explain it.

/Insert grumble about ruined road ride here.

BMX is the best bike when confronted by an angry driver. I was on a back road near what used to be ICI in Huddersfield. Will have been about 17 or 18 years old. Angry mad man took umbrage with me having the cheek to be on his road on an old and knackered BMX.

Drives by me, nudged me with the car and shouted a torrent of abuse. I retorted with **** off dickhead or something similar. He screams to a halt just up the road, gets out, starts yelling he’s going to kill me blah, blah. I simply got off the bike and threw it at him. He was not expecting this and took a BMX to the chest and chin. He promptly fell on his fat arse and looked very shocked. I picked up the bike, karate chopped his wing mirror off for good measure and proceeded down a snicket before he could come to his senses.

Could this aggression actually be down to the British race ? I have cycled regularly for the past 20 years in France and Spain,and apart from the odd occasion in these countries,UK drivers really are the most aggressive and angry. Doesn’t mean the roads here are the most dangerous though.

You can’t fight, never mind walk, in carbon soled Look equipped shoes. Not an effin chance.

Many years ago we were out with a ‘former’ Milk Race winner. Some guy in a Polo tried to knock him off on a 4 lane road. Cue rider booting the car door with Time shoes and Cleats (metal) – they put a big dent in the door. Driver got very annoyed, until my mate got out his warrant card and told him he’d seen him trying to run the guy over. On your way.

Its also apparent that many drivers are properly angry with the better drivers who are careful around cyclists.
I was driving on a B road last weekend. The driver behind trying to get into my boot, decides to overtake as I’m overtaking a cyclist, I’d looked in the mirror, signalled, pulled out (when safe) and there was the idiot driver right next to me, flooring it. He looked about 19. Again a very dangerous moment. He didn’t read the road, the situation.

I think any driver caught assaulting a child as above, needs locking up, their vehicle taken away with their licence and made to ride a bike.

I’ve had it commuting home – driver threattened to run me off the road as I was in front of him in a traffic queue. Got propper nasty, revving up, swerving. I got pretty shouty too, and when he pulled alongside, I shouted ‘I’ve got your reg’. He shot off. I diverted via the cop shop. Long story short, cops couldn’t take it further as my word etc, and no CCTV, but it went ‘on record’ as his vehicle had been reported a number of tmes for bad driving. Once on record, if they do get caught, the reports get thrown in the bag too.

I tend to ‘smile and wave’ now, confuses the hell out of them.

See all these tales are telling me two things.

1: There are lots of angry people out there who shouldn’t be driving

2: Flat pedals are best for cycling related fisticuffs 😀

I rode up that hill as hard as I could, composing angry responses that I thought I should’ve shouted at them.

Have only ever ridden the Burway twice (once from either side) and don’t think I could do it at all of late! There would need to be cold cider and a big pie waiting at the top, bare minimum 🙂

2: Flat pedals are best for cycling related fisticuffs 😀

SPDs – best of both worlds 🙂

SPD’s – yep, good for denting cars. Dancing shoes, AKA fancy road shoes, just don’t.

I’m just getting back into road cycling after five years off due to getting a broken back – stook to MTB as soon as I could get back on after hospital. Made the mistake of tryingto put my foot down whilst still moving on the road bike – can do that with SPD’s, not ice skates.

Always Flats or MTB SPDs on the road. You could never swing a decent punch or get a decent kick in wearing road cleats 🙂

Nothing is more amusing than footage of two cyclists in road cleats trying to have a fight.