Bike snobbery and road rage

I've been thinking about the "road rage" and cyclist on cyclist aggression for a few days since my partnew insisted on watching the complainers and road rage Britain. what strikes me most is that it seems to be culturally ingrained in us more with each generation the the individual has a right to be enraged at anyone or anything that impedes their goal. In the case of "road rage" the individuals right to get from A to B in the most convenient / quickest way. This "right" we feel seems to surpass all other considerations.
Tokyo, (as i recently mentioned in a Guardian article) is much busier its public transport, its roads, its footpaths all see more traffic than I've seen here, yet in my limited visit i saw no similar aggression transpire.Hence i am beginning to truly believe it's cultural. (that is not to say our road ways are as easy or wide as in other countries - they're clearly not.) But i wonder if our lack of infrastructure is only one part of the issue?

Totally agree with this. When others above mentioned Copenhagen, my thoughts turned to the various Scandinavians I met throughout Uni. The one common trait amongst them all was their chill attitude. I don't think they're genetically pre-disposed to calmness, it's just an enormous cultural faux pas to lose your shit, so everyone tries their best to stay cool and have fun. I get a similar vibe from the Japanese (although I've met far fewer IRL) it seems like losing face in public is massively embarrassing for everyone, so people are all trying hard to avoid confrontation.

In Britain we have this weird thing where we very rarely confront others in public (people talking in quiet carriages etc.) but then occasionally totally flip out after very little provocation.

Warning - Post contains massive generalisations about huge diverse populations of people