mmmm sweet karmic justice.
I actually refer to those tickets as “karma tickets.”
I’ve gotten them myself, for speeding mostly. People wondered why I was so chipper after I got a speeding ticket a few months back and I told them it was my karma ticket for all the times I didn’t get caught speeding, and now I have a clean slate!
All you guys need to do is tint your car. For $100 you can get 1% tint on your back window and never be bothered.
Even if people flash me (I’ve pissed a few people off in my time passing on the right) I can’t even tell. It’s funny to me that these people must think they’re doing something when all I notice is shifting lights (many high beam lamps are on different locations than normal lights).
Blown…
Ok, where do I begin? Reread my post. I drive fast unless my kid is in the car. I just don’t need a guy speeding up my ass or almost clipping my car with his just to get ahead one car length to wait at a red light. I’m rather functional in my car, I don’t dally or loll about like an old fogey. I have places to go and things to do, driving isn’t a leisure activity for me!
If I am able to get over out of some asshole’s way, I do it. If I can’t, I can’t but he doesn’t need to ride my ass regardless. You sound like one of those impatient, ass-riding drivers that just has to get ahead and prove your superior over everyone else on the road. Leave earlier and maybe you won’t have to ride ass. I don’t pace people either. I don’t consider driving a trip to “Road Warrior” land. I do what I need to do and get where I need to go but not while riding people’s bumpers.
Pacers and tailgaters on long drives on empty highways. Fucking idiots.
I can never understand why someone will come up behind me at 10+ mph over the speed limit on a major highway (when I’ve got my cruise control set at the limit) and then park on my ass for the next 20+ miles. Or park next to me. I do the slight slow down/speed up bit sometimes, but other times I’ll just hit the next off-ramp and then get right back on.
If they park behind me and refuse to move, despite the speed up/slow down game, eventually they’ll get the long finger (meaning, giving them the finger for a long period of time, say, until they get the hint). If they don’t get the hint after a couple of minutes of that, then they can eat my brakes.
As an alternate, I can never figure out why, when I move over behind someone on a crowded highway, they start staring at me in their rear view mirror and slowing down. Yes, I might have been a bit close when I moved over, but I was intending to slow down to increase the distance. It doesn’t help anyone for YOU to slow down and prevent me from doing that, does it? Stop staring at me and pay attention to the road in front of you. ASSHOLE
An ass? I’d say you’re a freaking genius!
Oh, and as far as the tinting comment goes, are you willing to foot the bill? You’re talking to a starving law student here who just had to use some of her book money for next semester to replace the windshield some asshole kid decided to bash in. (and yes, it had to be kids, they didn’t steal anything, so the bashing of the windshield was obviously done for shits and giggles. Only a kid would be stupid enough to do that without even taking anything from the car as it was parked right in front of my goddamn house).
And what makes me sound like one of them?
That you believe there is some superiority to be gained by imposing will on others in traffic leads me to not believe your comments about being speedy and getting out of the way when possible. It seems as if you feel you have won something by preventing another driver from accomplishing their goal.
It’s because of that guy with the hook for a hand who’s sitting right behind you!
OK, again Blown, please read my posts. I don’t drive for leisure, I need to get where I am going as quickly as I can. I don’t dawdle, I don’t play driving games, and I don’t fuck with anyone. If I can get out of the way, I do. If I can’t, I can’t… how hard is that to understand? I gave in to an assumption because you pissed me off, if you don’t drive up people’s asses then I take it back. Just don’t label me a dim-witted driving obstacle because that’s one thing I try very hard NOT to be.
I used to drive for a courier company and back then, you HAD to get to your destination asap! I can’t believe I did it for a year. That kind of driving really is stressful. I was pretty damn aggressive, you had to be to make any kind of money and it just wasn’t worth the dangers.
I have to admit that I do sometimes, when tired, pace other cars. It makes it easier to drive, especially when the road is unfamiliar - you can just follow the bright tail lights rather than trying to see the (relatively low-contrast) road. However, I follow WELL back (think 200-300 feet) and my car has some of the dimmest headlights around. I also stay in the right lane. I make sure to have excess following distance, partly for my own safety and yours, partly so that if the car in front exits/stops/does something unpredictable, I will have time to snap out of “follow mode” and decide whether I want to exit/stop/whatever.
I hope that I havn’t caused other drivers undue stress.
mischievous
Ok SanguineSpider, if you say so. But if you find that there is lots of “flippin” going on of the type you mention in your posts, then maybe you should do a search to find this thread and read my posts.
1920’s style death ray protection device.
And BTW, the mirror story is great! A mechanic I know that drives a POS old Escort told me he was going to drill a hole in the floor and into the exhaust where he will attach a metal pipe. Run the pipe into the car and attach to a plastic squeeze bottle full of trans fluid for a smoke screen anti tail gate anti hi-beam device
Hey, someone has to give him a ride!
A while ago, the momma and I were driving back home from our vacation in Washington. We’re on I-5, it’s a Friday morning, so there’s a fair amount of traffic, and when we hit a city things start slowing down. From behind us, comes a guy in a silver SUV, weaving in and out of all three lanes of traffic. Mom and I wonder where he’s going to in such a hurry, and do our best to stay out of his way and let us pass. Traffic starts speeding up, and we see him a couple cars ahead of us, making pretty good time (say, going around 90MPH or so). We go under an overpass, and then we see some brake lights around us - a cop is coming onto the freeway. Guess who he pulls over? If you guessed our testostrone-poisoned friend in the silver SUV, you’re right! Mom and I were laughing about it the rest of the way home.
Clever…
I don’t know, perhaps your “little trick” was dangerous, and IANAL, but perhaps illegal too, but, I’ve fantasized about something similar (though on a more “annoying, yet painful shine in the eyes way” rather than a “dangerous might cause an accident way” ) for years.
I’d love to have some sort of slanted shiny attachment on the back of my car, one that didn’t shine up into the potential tailgaters eyes until he moved too close, or unless he was both too close and had his brights on.
So that if drivers behind me were staying at the recommended and considerate distance of 1 car length per 10 miles an hour of speed, they wouldn’t get “shined out” (so NOT a grammatical phrase :D), but at considerate and safe distances, they wouldn’t.
Sigh, in a perfect world!
Well, I’m not too familiar with the term “pacing” but based on other posts, I’m assuming it means what we call “wolf packing” or when a driver in the left lane keeps JUST beside (or only slightly behind or in front) of the car in the next lane over, so that no other cars behind them can pass.
So he’s effectively playing “Mr. Speed Monitor” and dictating how HE/SHE thinks everyone else should drive.
It doesn’t sound as if that’s what you’re doing though, it sounds as if you’re just following so that you don’t “get lost” (:)) or something.
An aquaintence I knew in college had a car with a sunroof. He also had one of those super bright flashlights that plug into the cigarrette lighter socket. (He also claimed to me that he ‘upped’ the wattage of the bulb in it) Anyway, when he’d get the highbeams, he’d plug that thing in, open the sunroof, and use his side mirrors to aim it at the face of the driver behind him. Now, he claims it worked, but I’m pretty sure he’d have been arrested if he ever got caught by a cop.
(For the record, I don’t support the ‘Freeway Arms Race’ idea; there’s just no guarenteed ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’.)
Plan B was putting as many balloons filled with helium in my trunk that would fit with a drawing of a middle finger on each one(my car had the button to release the trunk from the glove compartment) and a spring to make sure the trunk would open all the way when the button was pushed
Since it was at night and there was no guarantee he would even see the balloons well enough to see the markings…also I figured he’d be kind of pissed and I’d have to stop eventually to close the trunk afterward therefore that scheme was put on the back burner
I know probably most people have had fantasies about doing something like this at some point but this was a special situation with this guy…it was a continuing event since it happened over many weekends with the same clown…I’d speed up…he’d speed up…I’d slow down…he’d slow down…all the while staying way too close with his high beams on…weekend after weekend
After awhile the idea started to sound…in MY head anyway…like something almost necessary to my continuing so-called sanity
One of the advantages to growing up on a farm is I had all the raw materials readily available and I had a crap car back then so any modifications I cared to make to my vehicle wouldn’t really hurt my car too much(I only had to drill a very small hole in the roof by the back window to put in an eye bolt for the wire to go through to raise the mirror)…the mirror was on a track so it would go straight up when raised so my nemesis would get the full effect
[Hannibal] “C’mon Face & Tee…get going with that accetylene torch. And where’s Murdoch with that damn helicopter?”[/Hannibal]
Heh heh. That was a funny story Tommy. When I was delivering pizza pies I was in a short vehicle and a lot of times a truck would get right behind me at a light to shine his headlights in at me cause he was pissed off that I got in front of him. I would just use my handly little joystick thingy to aim my side view mirror right in his face. The funniest time was when some total moron got so pissed off at me for shining his lights at him that he FLASHED ME WITH HIS BRIGHTS!!! HAHAHAHAHA! What an idiot!