branwen-
This was in London of course.
I cycled 1500km through Italy and France in 2013 and had maybe one incident of a driver willfully being a total dick, came back to London and in one 50km ride had perhaps 6/7 drivers deliberately cutting me up/overtaking on blind corners/honking aggressively on hills/overtaking 50 yards from the lights and blocking any filter lane deliberately. People in this country hate cyclists like they hate immigrants and feel just as justified denigrating them-you only need to look at the legal response to fatal accidents to see that it's socially acceptable and culturally sanctioned and the result is either accepting that and trying to avoid it as best you can, or having to strap yourself up like a fucking mobile CCTV station. And this is from experience riding in London's famous London to the rural island of Skye where I was riding with a friend towing his 2 year old child on a deserted road and had a twat in a chelsea tractor pass us with millimetres to spare just to prove a point.
It's one of the reasons I really have no interest in living here longer than I need to.
Anyway, TLDR, Parklife! etc. What's the point of fixating upon the unfixable. People are cunts.
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I think the act of being in a car is quite disassociating so that drivers don't really understand the implications of their actions, and combined with the very particular mentality of London/British 'my car is my castle' drivers it creates a really fucked up situation where they feel entitled to bully and abuse people they perceive as a nuisance. I remember waiting at a junction on my bike and a driver behind me literally pushing me into the road by edging forward against my back wheel-it wasn't until I turned round and stared into his eyes that he seemed to come round from whatever violent reverie he was in and he looked immediately embarrassed (and possibly fearful as I was about to get off my bike and drag him out the car/beat him to death with my D-lock) . I genuinely think he just didn't see me as a real person but just another object to get around like a parking bollard.