Road Rage - Do you?

[Geodude]

Sorry to hear about your scare Jayne, hope your leathers clean up okay Not sure what id have done in your place as my moods can be quite extreme if given the right prod, so im sort of a mix of fluffy kitten and nitroglycerin so it can get messy

I have followed a guy home (who tried to drive over me grr) and sat next to him on his drive for 10 minutes while he pretended not to see me, this was pre mobile phone so as i say he just sat there waiting. I eventually calmed down said i hope you've learned somthing and rode away. Bit silly of me really and im glad he stayed in the car.

I would love to be more like the chilled types on here and mostly i am but every now and then grrr, i knew those gamma ray experiments were a bad idea

[ChrisCurvyS]

As others have said, we all make mistakes and I don't get angry when people make honest mistakes and hold their hands up to it - don't hold any ill-feeling towards the van driver who took me and the bike out last month, because he came over and repeatedly said sorry while I was on the deck and didn't try to wriggle out of accepting responsiblity.

However, when people show blatant disregard for other road users - like the lorry driver I saw a few months back, holding up traffic doing an incredibly leisurely one-handed three-point turn while laughing away on his phone, it's so hard to turn the other cheek. I threw a coin at his head through his open window which landed with brilliant accuracy and the look on his face was priceless.

Have to reiterate though to choose your battles wisely and always be mindful that you're easy prey on a bike, unless you can filter or accelerate your way out of trouble.

The problem with road rage and confronting someone is you have no idea who they are or what they're capable of.

You hear stories in the news of someone being stabbed multiple times on a bus because he told someone to stop throwing chips at his girlfriend, or the case a few weeks ago of the autistic chap who died after being punched in the face for moaning at someone for riding a bike on the pavement. They weren't aggressive, or being unreasonable in what they were saying. Just so happened the other party was a crazy person.

I agree that if someone apologises for their error it does reduce the anger and annoyance for you. We've all made a driving mistake I'm sure.
The ones that don't apologise or even acknowledge an incident are obviously scummy, retarded low-life's that don't warrant any more of you time. I'd rather not get stabbed or run down because I confronted an oblivious moron that pulled out on me.

[pookie]

usually vent my anger at the time with lots of gesticulation and shouting ( should've gone to specsavers etc...)..gives an opportunity to get it out of my system and let it go ..

Once the hulk moment subsides its back to carry on as normal

I usually just have a ranty shout in their general direction. I've only been on the receiving end once, while driving at night and nearly took out a cyclist as I came onto a roundabout. In my defence, my SMIDSY moment was largely caused by the fact the cyclist was dressed entirely in black with a dim headlamp mounted, not on the handlebars but near the bottom of the front fork where it was damn near invisible even if you were looking stright at it (I'm sure it looked cool though)

Anyway, he came chasing after me so I put enough distance between us to be able to pull over safely and got out and waited for him to catch up. The fact that the first words he heard from me were "Are you alright?" took the aggression straight out of the situation. I just apologised for not seeing him, pointed out very politely and gently that I'd have stood more chance if he'd been at least properly lit, checked again that he was ok and we went our separate ways. TBH, I was more shaken up than he was. He'd just had a scare, I'd nearly killed someone.

[ethariel]

I commute through SE london to Westminster Mon to Fri so yes i suffer road rage and it's getting more and more directed at bloody cyclists (but thats another thread all on it's own) but then again I', 6'4" and definatley big lol

Hidden bottle full of DOT3, 12v windscreen washer pump, pipe sticking out the back of the bike, Bob is your uncle.

[PyroUK]

Very almost had a road rage moment last night. Thankfully I kept my cool as the guy was very apologetic.

Waiting for the vid to upload to tubeyou and I'll post a link. Managed a little endo in the middle, cost me a new pair of trouser though :-/

[PyroUK]

Think this works now:

http://youtu.be/P6aFSAqrWs4

I'm quite chilled out these days personally, tending to take every near miss as a chance to reevaluate my riding i.e. if someone pulls out in a line of traffic, was I going too fast, too close etc

However I do remember a time when driving my old car, when a lady just started coming across my lane. I beeped and she moved back over, I thought nothing more of it, yet as I drove past her she was flipping the bird at me!? I was furious and gave her a mouth full at which point she started making finger in the hole signs at me despite having her young teenage son in the car. Classy.