They push you, you push back ... let's assume that since they pushed you in the first place, they'll almost certainly push back. What then? You didn't walk away the first time, will you now? End result? You may well end up rolling around the aisles fighting, possibly resulting in a charge for both of you for disturbing the peace and maybe criminal damage.
Come to Sussex. I see at least a couple a year. TLH sees even more but they are quite punchy in Crawley where she works.
For the record, as stated in another, now locked thread,
I'd like to see folk try to have a chat with some of the ****s that drive around Mid-Sussex. You may as well walk up to a total stranger and tell him he has a tiny cock and his mother dresses him funny. You'd get a calmer and more positive response than you will from any driver you have a chat with around Haywards Heath. And that's according to all our other cyclists at work, and members of my club. Me? I don't ever talk to drivers except to sarcastically ask the odd one if he is driving for charity when he is stuck in a queue. Complete waste of breath otherwise.
You can figure it out from the OP.
Violence can often be the only way to put a stop to violence.
What is a constructive way to deal with it that has even a small chance of modifying driver behaviour, that's the question? For me it is now using a headcam and reporting them.
Define keeping their temper under control please. A highly subjective measure. Ok if they scream and shout abuse?
So you stare straight ahead whilst they continue to treat you with an outrageous lack of respect? Let's up the ante a little, lets suppose it's a man doing it because you're a woman and they're bigger and stronger than you, so we allow them to because we wouldn't want to cause a scene?
and the OP doesn't include the three times whilst stopped I've been hit from behind (twice at night, once in broad daylight) by the smidsy brothers and their sister.
