As a cyclist I never get into altercations but others do. I wonder how it will work out for them the next day when the road has to be shared again.
So van driver took offence and chased me at high speed down a dual carriageway and on the bike/pedestrian path. I had to swap to the fast lane to get traffic between myself and the van, plus I pulled a calf muscle and had to put my feet up for a fortnight. Oh, I also had to take a different route to work.
I hadn't been the one with 'road rage', however I was riding quickly and I had put myself before a more needy road user when I could have held back. Why Mr Van Driver decided to boil over about it I will never know, but he had quite a posse in the van and they were having great fun throwing things at me. Maybe they routinely got a kick out of beating up cyclists, making a sport of it.
It is extraordinary what moves you consider safe to make on a bicycle in fast moving traffic when there is a van trying to kill you. The game of 'Frogger' seemed to offer greater life expectancy.
Having seen the darkside of confrontation I really saw no reason why anyone would want to do anything at all that could incite a genuine road rage incident such as what I had been subjected to. Absolute terror, but at the same time extremely thrilling as I did manage to deftly manoeuvre my bike to get bollards or vehicles between myself and the van of doom in ways you really need the adrenaline for.
Incidentally I escaped by doing a last minute 'cyclist only move' at a roundabout - a sharp right going against traffic to enter an industrial park. I took a few moments to collect myself and gingerly made my journey to work to find myself there very early!
My suggestion is to always apologize even if you're not in the wrong, because getting into fights, or even angry, for silly things like that is not worth it.