Re:
I had a conversation about this with a friend the other day.
Not far from me is a mile long dual carriageway that is part of a return route home for me. Parallel to it is a shared path, that once was super smooth.
My buddy couldn't understand why I don't use the path to avoid the traffic, which is logical enough. I tried to explain but he was not getting it until I said " If you were walking down that path, and I came past from behind, on the cyclists side, a foot or less from your shoulder doing 25 to 30 MPH, how would you feel about that?" He said it would be dangerous, I agreed and said "and that is why I use the road."
I'm afraid my buddy is a very reasonable and sensible guy, not a cycle hater and yet the idea of cyclists and pedestrians and kids and dogs converging at speed had never occurred to him. Why would it?
The knob in that clip is just typical of thousands of drivers who feel that have the right to make a point and show us, the idiots, what we are doing wrong, that's what all the close passes and brake tests, both in bikes and in cars are all about. The latest one on the motorway being undertaking at about 80 MPH in an effort to show people overtaking slow lorries that they are doing it all wrong. It always ends up with lots of brake lights and swearing.
It is a dangerous sense of entitlement and the fact that the M5 in the South West was closed four times last week / weekend just shows how dangerous it is.