MISTAKENLY, I'd thought it was just an interesting fact.

"Did you realise," I said to the private hire driver, "It's three penalty points and a £100 fine for sitting in the bike box?"

It was a single lane road with a bike lane yet, somehow, my private hire car and a second private hire car were both squeezed side by side at the traffic lights, both in the bike box and blocking the bike lane.

My driver did not take this on board as an interesting piece of additional information that might be of use to a professional driver. Instead, he took the hump.

"I don't think that's right," he said. Bike boxes - or as they're officially known, Advanced Stop Lines (ASLs) - count as a second white line on the road.

Drivers are obliged to stop at the first white line. Of course, if you're already in the ASL when the lights change or if it would require a dangerously sudden stop to avoid it, then you're off the hook.

"Well, I'm going to check that out."

After a few minutes of awkward silence we reached my flat. I had paid. I had my keys in my hand. I was waiting for my change. I was so close to making an escape when... oh no.

He wheels out what clearly is a favourite anecdote about a cyclist who'd done him wrong. There's not really anything I can say. He tells me another anecdote, an incident that happened to his friend.

Next up is a story told to him by a passenger.

My mistake: I'd forgotten how much certain drivers hate cyclists. "What I don't understand," he says. "Is why they get to sit in front of the cars. My car can accelerate faster than a bike."

Yep, but it's not about speed, it's about safety.

He trots out the old classics: why don't you have insurance? Why can't you stay on the pavements?

It's 2am and I'm working at 9am. This guy is stealing valuable, valuable sleep time. But he owes me a fiver.

Is 15 minutes of sleep worth £5? I'm mulling this over as he goes on about a passenger who worked in insurance and said taxi drivers are the safest motorists on the road.

I could tell him about the many. many, many crazy manoeuvres I've seen private hire drivers pull off but what's the point.

Three times I mentioned my car. One of those times I also pointed at it.

"So," he said, "I take you can't drive?"

So, I should have replied, I take it you're just not up for really listening.

I decide to let him keep the change and swing a leg out the car. He's waiting for his big finale. "I just think you should pay road tax."

"For what?" I ask. He sound utterly exasperated. "For using the roads." But that's not what road tax is for, I say. It's a tax on emissions. Bikes don't create any emissions.

"So why's it called road tax then?" "It's not, that's a misnomer." "Well, we've had it for decades and we didn't have all this emissions nonsense in the 60s, 70s, 80s or even 90s."

I get out the car. "I think you're wrong," he calls as I shut the door.

The next morning I cycle along the first completed stretch of the South City Way. There's a car parked in it. The following day a woman is pushing a buggy along it into cycle traffic. The next day it's a van blocking the route.

At the back of the St Enoch Centre a motorist drives into the bike lane, which is a contra-flow, as I cycle towards him. If I hadn't stopped he'd have knocked me off my bike while looking me right in the eyes.

Glasgow has great aspirations of becoming a cycling city.

The problem is attitudes. We'll never encourage every driver to love cyclists but even reaching a point where they see us as a necessary evil would be progress.

New cycle routes around Glasgow are a good thing but they need to come with an education programme too. Otherwise we'll be stuck in this cycle of driving each other mad.