Ugh - had a rough week with drivers this week. It was really hard to get back on my bike today. One even yelled at me for not following the rules of the road after I made a left turn - I was too far left in his opinion, well duh! I was making a left turn in 3 houses... and going down a hill. You do not have time to pass - and bikes must turn left from the left most lane...
I know it'll fade as I keep biking and have more and more positive interactions with drivers... but any advice for letting it slide?
I find I have a crazy driver incident about once ever 6 months. I've had the exact same incident as you, several times. I'm not sure how drivers expect me to turn left from the right hand shoulder, but whatever.
I just chalk it up to the driver having a bad day and decided to take it out on some defenseless stranger on the road. I think of it as the equivalent as the dick person who has a bad day at work and then comes home and yells at their family. It's a dick move and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to encounter this person when they were in a mood.
My best advice is to keep cool and don't yell back at them. Don't get into a yelling match about who has the right of way. Escalating the situation with someone who's already angry and irrational just makes it worse.
If they're hanging around you and making you feel threatened the best thing I ever came up with was calling out their license plate#. I've been able to diffuse several scary incidents this way. You can actually see the lightbulb go off in the person's head as they realize, "Crap, I'm not anonymous! I'm going to get reported for road rage."
Calling out the plate# also helps me remember it for the cases where the driver's actions were so egregious that I report them to the police.