I wrote an article a few weeks back about the dangers of cycling on Irish roads (view here) - well I had another near miss today.
On my way into work, I met a roundabout with two lanes. Because I was going straight ahead, I rightly took the inside lane (closest to path). A stoopid driver that was coming from behind me decided he wanted to go left, but instead of waiting for me to go on ahead, he decides to try pass me. Totally under estimating the speed a cyclist can travel at (i was doing about 18mph) he didn’t have the time to pass me, so he was in effect coming in on top of me. I speed up to dry and avoid him and thankfully that helped him narrowly miss me. He did slam on and come to a halt. He then had the nerve to wave his fist at me, beep his horn and call me all the names under the sun.
I of course stopped my bike, turned around and walked towards him to have it out with him. He rolled down his window and told me how I was a “stupid f**ker”, how I shouldn’t be in that lane and how I shouldn’t be on the road because I don’t pay road tax - I lost it back at this stage. As I got close to the car though, he drove off…….
I was so pissed off, I could have been seriously injured, while this guy insists he had the right of way and that I was in the wrong. Without getting a chance to explain my side of the story to him, it left me feeling very frustrated. Enough so that I have to admit, I lost respect for other drivers on the road. Instead of having courtesy at junctions, I admit this morning I treated all drivers as if they were this twat that I had encountered earlier. Every car that came in on top of me, rather than just shaking my head at them, I’d be a bit more annoyed looking…. 
This is road rage - but it all starts with someone’s lack of knowledge of the rules of the road. There’s so many drivers out there that don’t know the rules of the road - we should have regular checks for people that have held their licenses for so long. It doesn’t have to be a full blown test, maybe just something like the theory test that you’d need to pass to renew your license. This simple task would mean that people would need to remind themselves of the rules of the road on a regular basis.