Mike Sales wrote:In those circumstances I have tried to begin by telling them quietly that I was rather frightened by their driving. This may not be productive always, but at least is not immediately aggressive.
I think that whatever you say, how you say it can be as important, or even more important, than what you say. What works with some people will not work with others, and it is extremely difficult to judge how someone will respond to any given approach in the heat of the moment immediately after a scary near miss.
Neverthless, I don't think saying you were frightened is the optimum approach. I am sure that some drivers would respond in a positive manner, but others would turn it against you, e.g. 'if you're frightened, then that's your problem'/'you shouldn't be on the road' etc. Others might not respond positively because it implicitly blames them, and many will adopt a defensive and closed mind response to being blamed, or even consider it your fault for trying to make them feel bad/guilty.
Your statement that you were frightened is presumably an opening gambit, which is intended to lead on to why you were frightened, i.e. the driver was too close, too fast etc. However, it's an opening gambit which, intentionally or otherwise, seeks to put the other person on the back foot and make them feel guilty, and many people will not respond well to that.
Whether you were frightened is not important. Similarly I do not give a damn whether the driver feels guilty or sorry about their mistake: it's already history and not something they can undo. All that I care about is influencing their future behaviour, even if only slightly and only for a relatively short period. My being aggressive or passive-aggressive or otherwise emotional is likely to be counter-productive to that.
So I would not talk about being frightened. I would go straight to the point of what was at fault with the driving, and talk about it in cold dispassionate terms, e.g. 'You need to allow more space when overtaking a bike. The Police say 1.5m minimum'.
I used the driving instructor/pupil analogy above, because I think that is the type of communication that is likely to work best. If a pupil makes a serious mistake, a good instructor does not get angry, nor would they tell their pupil that their driving had frightened them (which would only serve to needlessly undermine the pupil's confidence). Instead the instructor explains to the pupil the nature of their mistake (without being patronising), and tells them what they should have done.