Help a guy out...

velocity boy

Oh, and the comment earlier about 8 hours or more of putting up with crap drivers. That's called professionalism. You don't carry the ill will or anger from one incident onto the next. The next driver isn't responsible for all that happened prior in the day. Cycling in London is a constant exercise in exerting calm and avoiding conflict. Implying that the accumulation of stress on the road justifies or excuses behaviour like this is just wrong.

And for the record, none of us know that story of the Merc driver. Can't we consider that he also might have been having a hard day. The poor sod is stuck in his shiny car and unable to move at more than 10mph. Surely that would be enough to drive you to desperation? No? Precisely... none of this is inexcusable, not even as retaliation. But people are people and we should be able to forgive everyone's moments of madness and instead focus on making their lives better. In the case of the Merc driver it means a new windscreen and not being in fear of cyclists, in the case of the cyclist it means not being deported and having the financial trauma and stress lifted.

It's not hard to be cool about such stuff is it?

I am not excusing his actions, but I have been there. Many times. Call it a lack of professionalism, call it stupidity, ok, ok, all of that is true. But it happens.

I totally agree that the Merc didn't deserve to have his window smashed, but the guy bumped Ryan's back wheel deliberately, and hard enough to bend it. That's not cool either. I think they just about got what they deserved, both of them, at the time. Fortunately, as far as I know, neither party was seriously injured. The Merc driver is getting a new wind-screen.