How to get away with being a driver who is aggressive towards cyclists

[I mostly wrote this back in July, just finishing it now.]

Back on Sunday 16th June 2013 I was on my return cycle from the Bromley Cyclists camping weekend in Essex I was cycling along and getting ready to turn right at Langford to head north. After signalling to turn right and having 3 cars pass completely ignoring 2 cyclists with their arms stretched out to indicate that they wish to turn right, I gave out a scream to draw attention to the situation as the fourth driver was already starting to overtake, and I feared I was going to be frozen out and unable to turn, thus being stuck by the side of the road.

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The male driver wound down the window and claimed that I was frightening his child in the back, whom I couldn’t see due to the blacked out windows. He then got of the car and came round to my side and claimed that the road was to share, of which he didn’t seem to get, as if he did, he would have waited patiently behind us. He also said that you don’t scream to turn, though he obviously was blind to the fact I had my hand out as he suggested I should be doing.

I’ll let you watch it below:

I then reported it to the police, it was slightly complicated due to me living in Suffolk police’s area, and the incident occurring in the Essex police area, thus I had to give an initial report over the phone to Essex police, who then got Suffolk police to come and take a statement and a copy of the video above.

The police then had problems tracking the driver down as the vehicle was hired under the name of someone else and when they went to the address given to the hire company they found that the people who were there moved 3 months before and hadn’t left a forwarding address. The police had asked me if I just wanted them to talk to the driver for some driver improvement, or to take it to court, with them pushing the former. I foolishly accepted that, which meant that they didn’t pursue the case much further whereas had I said early that I wanted to go to court they said they may have pursued it further, but there wasn’t any point. However as far I was concerned they were failing to talk to the driver at all, which isn’t what I wanted. Ah well lesson for the future.