'Cyclist swore and shouted'

From C Baxter

ONE Friday morning I was travelling by car into Cambridge and at the sharp bend at Newnham I overtook a cyclist. I looked in my mirror and saw him pointing his finger to his forehead and shouting to me.

[i.e. ‘C Baxter’ cut up the cyclist or drove dangerously close to him]

I drove slowly and opened my passenger's window and told him he should use the cycle lane.

[i.e. ‘C Baxter’s dangerous driving was probably quite deliberate, to punish the cyclist by terrorising him.]

He said it was up to him to choose the road instead of the bicycle lane.

[Perfectly true.]

He then started swearing and shouting at me

[As you might when someone has driven a ton of metal at you, and then had the impudence to tell you you don’t belong on the road.]

and I told him I was going to report him to the police

[who would probably have displayed great sympathy for a driver involved in a confrontation with a cyclist]

but he wanted to use the road while the cycle lane was empty,

[presumably because the off-road cycle lane was badly maintained or constantly broken up by junctions where the cyclist has to defer to motor traffic]

does not pay any road tax,

[not that urban myth again]

is not insured

[C Baxter has no way of knowing whether or not a cyclist is insured. If this cyclist was a member of a cycling organisation, he probably was.]

and misbehaved like a complete lunatic.

[No, he responded in a natural way to an arrogant and aggressive driver who is plainly unfit to be in control of a dangerous weapon]

He then drove [sic] in front of my car and started braking, about four times, while he still swore and shouted at me. I could have easily knocked him over but I was too polite to do so.

That's the trouble with cyclists. Bad-tempered, tax-dodging spongers who show no gratitude when drivers go out of their way to be polite.