Had one of those close overtakes today. The kind that are not accidental, nor are they careless - they are malicious, calculated attempts to enforce the view that we should not be in the way.
My better half and I were almost at Cambridge City Centre, heading in on Victoria Avenue. At the end the road there's a roundabout, where to go straight on you need to be in the right hand lane. With 50 or 60 yards to spare we both looked over our shoulders, saw a car well behind us, signaled, and moved out.
Just feet from the roundabout stop line, a taxi slipping between the car that had taken the left hand lane and us missed me by a matter of inches - it very nearly brushed me. Still moving out as it undertook, he seemed only to see my partner in front after nearly taking me out, and swerved away again before accelerating and nearly taking her out too - all to get to a stop line one place in front of us.
We caught him. Obviously. And we caught him again at the rising bollard (where, being pumped full of adrenaline from such a cynical act of aggression, I berated him very loudly). And then we caught him again on the way out of Drummer Street. And again at the junction with Downing Street. Or, in other words, his overtake was not, and could not, gain him the slightest advantage in terms of road space. We were being taught a lesson by a coward (and he was a coward - he was all aggression behind the wheel but without the courage of his convictions when I shouted at him loudly enough to attract witnesses) using his taxi as a weapon with which to threaten us.
There is no such thing as accidentally driving within inches of a cyclist. Such an act is, always, assault. Its not careless driving, its not dangerous driving, its assault - the express intention of this is to frighten us off the roads.
But, really, what ought we expect? Cambridge taxi drivers don't consider us valid road users.
Do not tell me there is no 'war on the roads'. There is. Only, we aren't fighting it. They are.
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