Avast lassies.  I finally gave this damn game up a few months back, but I thought I'd throw this down in here anyway:

Ok, I'll set the scene. I'm a masters aerospace engineering student on my way to a meeting with a professor about a significant project I'm helping him with.

I've pulled up to a traffic light beside an old man already waiting in a people carrier. The light goes green, and as I'm sure you know, the bike I'm riding has far better acceleration, so I shoot off in front of the old man (nothing dangerous - I'm 15-20m ahead of him before he's even started moving). He really doesn't like this and gives me a nice long hoot - I don't respond.

We come to a curve in the road about 200m onwards, I'm driving in the middle of the lane, and he comes along the inside of the curve in the same lane (wheels in the gutter and all), and actually brushes his car past me - about 3 or 4 seconds of contact between the back of my arm/elbow and the side of his car. In the situation, there was nothing I could do until he passed (no braking, nothing). I'm totally shocked by this behaviour but I brush it off and keep a cool head (the last thing a biker wants in a busy city is road rage).

About 200m later, I pass him, and just shake my head (i'm wearing a full face helmet), no fingers or obscenities. About a mile later I turn off the road, I get about 50m down and realise i'm totally blocked off by a lorry, so I turn around back onto the main road to find an alternative route.

I'm just about to turn onto the road and I see in the corner of my eye the old man running at me from his illegally parked car. I wait to hear what he has to say .. general loud abuse in a scouse accent, tells me he's taking down my details for any possible damage I might have caused his car. I say something along the lines of "who the hell do you think you are playing God with my life, using your car to push a BIKE around .. I don't have time to deal with your issues, I have somewhere to be", and I leave him.

Please please please be careful with us bikers. I could so easily have been killed in half a second because of some superiority complex. You have a nice metal box filled with airbags - most of you get road rage far too easily. Us bikers are sitting on top of a ~150kg metal box, completely exposed to the cheese grater of a road. We bikers are nice people, really .

Thanks xx