Is it time to start calling out bad cyclists?

I remember my Grandpa saying when he was driving he always wanted to be able to hear what the engine was doing and what other people's engines were doing so he could drive properly. Used to say these new cars that block all the sound from outside are deathtraps. And that he'd never turn the radio on. It's a bit extreme perhaps, but I tend to cycle similarly. I want to be able to hear my own drivetrain and what the nincompoops in the metal boxes are doing.

Like Orko says, town and country cycling is different.

Anyway, back on topic… Some wand on a hybrid this evening kept on undertaking me all the way down Liverpool Road only to get stuck in clusterfucks of manouvering cars. Then he'd peddle frantically to undertake me again and again get hoist by his own petard.

Surely there must come a point when people like this will twig that the methods they're using aren't working. Do they not look at the other cyclists who get further with less effort without winding up everyone they come accross and wonder what they might be doing wrong?

Your grandad is a wise man.
Its not just noise insulation though, its the way current cars isolate in every way from what is going on outside (and with the car) even compared to cars of 10years ago, and they were inconceivably more isolating from events than cars of 10years before that. etc etc.
So what you have now is people driving cars far more briskly than ever before, as they are damped from the vast potholes they are crashing into, kerbs, other cars, and a general lack of care for whats going on around them. Those that wear ear phones listening to Ipods in their cars are just as bad as people who use mobiles IMO.