Its been a while since I’ve met quite such an aggressive motorist, one who’s prepared not only to scream abuse but to try and hit me with their car — unfortunately tonight was such a night.

I pulled up at the lights to turn right from Clayton road into North road, drawing alongside a dark blue/green Ford station wagon stopped in the through lane. As I got level with the driver’s window she flicked half a cigarette’s worth of glowing ash straight out, half in my face, half down my leg. Surprised — and stung where it burned — I yelled out “Yeow!” She looked out the half-open window and “Sorry, didn’t see you” . All I said was “Use your ashtray” and she launched into a tirade of abuse, “don’t have a f’ing ashtray,” “you shouldn’t be riding at night,” “I’ll f’ing ash where I f’ing want, you f’ing c***,” etc etc, meanwhile shaking the cigarette furiously out the window at me and trying to flick more ash onto me. “Just use your ashtray!” I shouted as the lights went green, starting to pedal forwards to get away, she planted her foot and swerved in to the lane at me, I smacked down with my hand on the bonnet to fend myself off and took off around the corner into North road, she tore off forwards down Clayton road, still screaming at me out the window!

Unfortunately I didn’t see the registration, the plates were dark and the light above them wasn’t working, so it was pointless to visit the police and go through the rigmarole and get nothing done.

Only good point of it was that there don’t appear to be any burn holes in my clothes — only in my face!