To the woman in the white Magna that nearly ran me off the road on the Powis St onramp this afternoon - you're just the tip of the iceberg. A lesson in merging: When there is a car in the left lane (but ahead of you) travelling at the same speed and the lanes merge the right thing to do is not to race right up behind the car in front of you in the right-hand lane to try and block the car in the left-hand lane.

Honestly, did it matter that much that you had to be a car length in front of me? As it happens, I missed you by maybe 5 centimetres (2 inches in the old language). I had assumed that you were going to let me merge in but luckily I heard you rev the crap out of your car as you accelerated to cut me off (one of the benefits of a soft-top). Otherwise we'd still be parked on the side of the freeway discussing how to cut the two cars apart.

As above, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Perth drivers generally suck. They are impatient; don't know how to merge; don't understand that the right-hand lane is for overtaking; don't get it that if you're doing less than the speed limit you should merge left; and generally just don't look (it's surprising the number of times I've nearly been hit in a big black Jeep - even with headlights on).

I could list dozens of examples. Another one was this morning - Anna and I were on our bikes (for reference: hers and mine) coming back from the hills along Shepperton Rd in Victoria Park. Taking off from a set of lights a guy in a van missed us both as he passed us by about 2 centimetres.

Seriously - people just don't think. How you would feel if you knocked someone over (pedestrian or bike rider) and they were seriously injured or killed? How would you live with that?

Yeah, I know - car vs. car is different from car vs. bike but it just adds to the annoyance factor. Plus, I'm very protective of my tender pink person when I'm on my bike. I ride defensively but try to put on the appearance that I'm riding aggresively. The two rules are:

• Take more room on the road than you need - that way if something goes wrong you have space and (hopefully) time to recover.
• Assume everyone else is a complete idiot and they are trying to kill you. This works when driving too. It's saved me many times.

I've driven in plenty of cities both in Australia and around the world. With the exception of Bangkok (and maybe Johannesburg) I think that Perth drivers are the worst. A litle bit of patience and some (obviously not-so-) common sense would go a long way.