Okay, just to be clear, we are taking no sides on this issue. Because almost every day, the Liveline team fields phone calls from two seeming warring factions, regularly battling for supremacy on our roads.

Occasionally, those battles escalate beyond just brief exchanges of vocal abuse or the odd waving of a clenched fist, and they enter into the realm of very real, physical confrontations, sometimes involving actual assault. Road rage, in other words, is not just a phenomenon involving two or more motorists. Cyclists and motorists are on a slippery slope.

And so to the story told by Liveline listener, Louise, who was, she says, assaulted by a cyclist while driving last week in inner-city Dublin at about 8am, on her way to work.

“I was stuck in traffic, stopped at the lights. On my left window, a cyclist proceeded to bang on my window and go a bit crazy, started shouting something which I could not hear. I opened my own window on my side. He was screaming, out-of-control, saying that I didn’t leave enough space to get past.”

On this particular road, there was no cycle lane, but Louise still felt there was ample room on her passenger side. Trying to address the situation, she wound down the window to ask what the issue was. A big mistake, she knows now.

"He came across to my side of the car, the driver side, and he hit me, through the window. Hit me on my right arm. He didn’t punch, but he hit me. He lashed out and it was quite strong.”

Louise was not just physically hurt, but upset and really shaken. At this stage, the traffic lights had turned green, but she stayed in the same position, trying to gather her thoughts. The cyclist, in the meantime, cycled around her car and came back to the driver’s window, at which stage Louise confronted him. She demanded his name, and said she was going to report him, to which he replied, “I’m so sorry, sorry about that”, before speeding off in the opposite direction.”

Looking back on the event, Louise feels she left herself in a vulnerable position by winding down a window but is also interested to know whether this has happened to anybody else. She is also very conscious of rising tension between cyclists and motorists, with people on both sides ready and willing to escalate tensions by getting physically aggressive.

“As a driver, and a cyclist, I see it on both sides. This aggression is between both sides. There is no respect from either cyclists or the drivers. And it’s growing. It’s a growing problem and nothing is being done about it. There are more cyclists on the road, more cars on the road. I don’t know what we’re doing to solve this.”

This was a man, over 60 years of age, and unable to control his aggression. Louise is firmly under the impression that “he was ready, ready to lash out.” And it’s this viciousness that really worries her.

To listen to the full interview, click here.