Please report dangerous drivers to the police - Roadsafe. Report to plod, not just whinge here.

It is perhaps worth another reminder that in this situation it's actually the driver who's the real victim, not Jeremy Vine. Don't imagine that I endorse her actions in any way. Of course she's in the wrong there, but for someone to have such an extreme reaction to something so trivial, there must be other things very much amiss somewhere. The way in which she expresses her perception of her own sense of superiority as a driver is not an expression of a strength but of a weakness.

This is a classic case of someone losing their rag in a fairly harmless traffic situation. The way she does that points to some degree of motor dependence. This is a psychological condition caused by people having swallowed the nonsense about driving in completely inappropriate circumstances, such as in an inner city, making their lives better, to the extent that they use cars as a mental crutch, are strongly insistent on their 'rights' as drivers, and see driving as a crucial mechanism of social participation, whereas in their perception people who cycle are socially excluded/exclude themselves and are either poor or eccentric/mad. Victims of motor dependence will often express it either in such situations or in conversations, and it may be combined with other stresses they are under.

In London you currently have the phenomenon that a lot of successful people ride bikes and the old clichés increasingly no longer apply. Many people find this very hard to fit into their world view. Combined with the fact that a lot of new bike riders have very little skill at riding, this has increasingly caused the perception that 'cyclists' are entitled, selfish mugs who put themselves and others at risk. (Obviously, the 'old' attitudes are still found; they haven't disappeared entirely. Of course, you also still get many cases in which the driver is probably richer and more conventionally successful than the rider with whom they enter into conflict.)

Oddly, despite appearances, it's not always the person who gets shouted at who's the victim. Yes, she drives in a pushy way etc. and I'm sure he could have done without this encounter, but at the end of the day he's a well-established, successful, confident professional who has made an enlightened transport choice, remains calm and deals with her flailing aggression well, whereas she's clearly distraught and unable to deal with the situation, drives a small car, is probably of conventionally lower 'social standing' than Vine, and in the main causes a problem to herself, not to him.

What about the threats and the kicking? Well, Vine probably knows perfectly well that people carry out such threats only in exceedingly rare circumstances and that he was not really at risk. None of that is to say that he was an aggressor, he was just superior in dealing with the situation, although his decision to stop just where the line of parked cars ended on one side, which could have given the driver the chance to overtake there, seems possibly calculated, perhaps even provocative.

It could be that her outburst occurred in part because she was at that moment preparing to overtake, and his stopping threw her off completely. She then tries to use the classic mechanism of trying to shift blame, with her claim that he doesn't seem to value his life, stopping in front of a car and all that. Needless to say, she's completely unsuccessful and Vine brushes it off, and now she probably has the nation's media after her.