Matthew's Journal

When sitting in a slow moving queue of traffic a cyclist that appears rapidly ... can be quite intimidating.

This is a joke, right ? You're sitting in a ton of glass and metal - practically in a tank - and you're "intimidated" by someone who "appears rapidly" ? What are you worried about ? They might collide with you and get blood and guts on your paintwork ?

Also I have had my paintwork scratched ...

If we're doing horror anecdotes:

I have been run into multiple times by drivers deliberately intending to intimidate me and who disregard my clear signals to keep away. I often have to overshoot my destination because the vehicle behind is tailgating me at 20mph and stopping would mean getting rammed.

I have been personally injured and only avoided more serious injuries or death through my own agility. I have had to sue drivers four or five times (I lose count!) to recover a total of thousands of pounds of damage to my vehicles; I've had a cycle completely destroyed by a red light jumping motorist. A driver who rammed me from behind then got out of his car and attacked me in person - in front of an independent witness - grabbing me by the neck hard enough to leave marks visible tens of minutes later. In none of these serious incidents have there been any prosecutions.

In the whole country, drivers kill 3000 people a year.

You're using the comparatively trivial actions of some arsehole as a stick with which to beat the victims of an epidemic of serious violent crime committed with almost complete impunity.

Under the circumstances I don't give a shit about your paintwork.

Ian Jackson