Drivers with Herd Instinct. Kill Them All.

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear Cockbite from Maryland,

I know it’s 3AM and I’m on I-95 South because I have to drive 7 hours and never mind why.

Perhaps you’re lonely. Perhaps you’re scared. Perhaps you want to have car-to-car sex at 78MPH. I do not know.

GET THE SWEET JAY-JESUS FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!! I don’t know what the fuck made your herd instinct kick in, but there are two cars on this highway within a mile of each other and you have to sit on my quarterpanel for a FUCKING HOUR YOU FUCKING FUCK!

Listen, cow-person. There are DEER and other animals on the side of the highway. It’s LATE. I need manuver room in case they cross in front of me or there’s a GIANT GODDAMN TRUCK TIRE IN MY LANE LIKE THE ONE THAT WAS FUCKING THERE!

I slowed down, so you could speed ahead. You got 10 ft in front in your lane… AND THEN SLOWED TO MATCH MY SPEED!

I sped up to leave you behind and did so… AND THEN THERE YOU ARE CRAWLING UP MY FLANK AGAIN!

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!?!

Fuck you intersate stalker. Just fuck you. A fucking hour of you 2ft off my left/right. You are lucky that I am not completely psychotic and didn’t have a shottie or I swear to god we’d be reading about you on the google news.

That is all.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

2

As a non-driver, I’ve always wondered about this. Is there an actual reason for it? Why, with a mile of open road in front and behind, do you always see clusters of cars? Why wouldn’t you spread the hell out!

3

Maybe he was trying to warn you of a maniacal killer in your backseat, and every time he popped up to kill you, the other car scared him back down.

Did you check for a bloody hook hanging from your car door when you got home?

4

Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize that was you.

:wink:

5

I’m guessing he was rabbiting you. Although rabbiting at 78 mph seems. . .timid.

6

I run into these from time to time. If they’re hanging too close behind, I slow, gradually. 65…62…60…57…55…slower…

Somewhere in there the light bulb usually comes on and they pass.

7

I hate people who gauge their speed by traffic–people who clearly don’t have/use cruise control. Starrrrtttt pasisng them … they realize they’re not going fast enough so they speed up. They realize they’re going too fast (or come to some sort of slope/hill) and slow down. Then they sit that way for a while, you end up passing them with plenty of distance only to find them creeeeeeeeep up on you again. They eventually overtake you, and you find yourself creeeeeeping up on them because they’ve slowed down.
Anyone have experience with adaptive cruise control? Does it make things like that more bearable?

8

I thought that too at first, but I was set on cruise control at 78MPH and he/she/swamp thing in a minivan wasn’t. They’d speed up, slow down, parallel, slow down, speed up, parallel. Over and over and over. By time number eight it should be obvious my speed isn’t chaning and isn’t going to change.

Here’s another favorite trick. They’d parallel another vehicle… like a tractor trailer we were both overtaking. So they speed up, get ahead, get into the TT’s blind spot and stay there for a bit going slower than we were previously. Then when they clear the TT eventually, I go around them and guess what… they’re trying to leghump my car again.

I was seriously imagining how it’d be to have a James Bond car with the oil slick and caltrips. I’ve seen some stupid on the roads, but this tool was above and beyond.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

9

Sometimes, you can tell that they’re pissed at you because you keep passing them. There’s a clearly aggressive response to each time they slow down enough that you start gaining on them, and a bit of a swagger when they blow past you again. They don’t seem to realize that they’re engaged in a game of oneupmanship with… your cruise control.

It would be funny if it weren’t so scary.

10

JMO
Some people have poor night vision and suddenly feel more comfortable where they can see better (four headlights on the road instead of two). Others might hang on your tail and use you as a guide dog knowing that they can travel faster with some help.

It doesn’t make them any less of an asshole but it might just explain why they do it.

Going South on US 69 through Oklahoma one night I had a car trail me and no matter how slow or fast I went it wouldn’t pass me nor could I lose it.

I got to a small town where street lighting was abundant and the car passed me within a few blocks, it’s elderly driver having no problem finding his way with the extra lighting.

11

Just as fucking annoying but a slightly different breed of asshole. People who Must Be In Front when coming up to and passing a truck or a merge or whatever. See Bouncer’s post for a Attenboroughesque description.

Then there’s the fucking clueless. They don’t pass all that fast. They can end up sitting just like in the OP … just behind the quarter panel… then near to the fender… then passing and into your lane … everything going slower than Gene Wilder on Quaaludes (really slow and mellow but still 80-fucking-MPH).

12

I’m just the opposite. I think cruise control is the worst thing ever. I see people parked in the fast lane obviously running cruise control and never looking in their rearview mirror. I’ve been stuck behind two cars side by side driving at exactly the same speed for about 15 miles with no cars in the visible distance ahead.

Please people, just let people pass and don’t try to regulate the speed of traffic.

13

God, I hate that particular kind of driver. Look, all I want is to kick back, listen to my music, and drive in peace. I don’t want to deal with your fucking headlights in my mirror for an hour on an otherwise empty road! LEAVE ME ALONE!

14

I hate it when people do that. I’ve seen it so much on my motorcycle. I’ve never understood it either, I want to be away from people, especially when I ride.

The people I really don’t get are the people who go flying past you, then get over and just start slowing down, or better yet the ones that get over and hit the brakes. I know when I’m on the bike I don’t screw with people so I know I couldn’t have pissed them off.

95 seems to be the worst, especially in Virginia through Georgia.

15

Assholes of a different strip–yet assholes nonetheless.

If you’re in the passing lane going two miles faster than traffic to your right, speed up just a bit and get the fuck over. Keeping right isn’t just a suggestion.

16

Just take the next exit, grab a coke or whatever, and then get back on the road.

17

Why didn’t you pull off at an exit with a gas station, get a soda or something and get back on? After 10 minutes of what you went through, I would have given this person the idea that I was already at my destination by exiting. Fifty minutes more of that bullshit is just asking for an accident to happen.

18

Which is hard to do if the person to your right is a speed matcher. “Ohhh, someone’s passing me, I must be going too slow, better speed up a couple MPH! Still passing me, better speed up more! Wait, they’re slowing down? They must see a cop! Apply brakes pronto!”

19

Just slow down until they pass you. What’s the big deal?

20

But that has nothing to do with cruise control, per se; it’s just asshole drivers. Anyone who sits in the fast lane and cruises next to another car so that no-one can get by is an asshole, period, whether or not they’re running cruise control.

I use cruise control on the freeway when traffic is relatively light (it’s harder when traffic is heavy, because you have to make too many adjustments and it’s not worth it). But even when i’ve got cruise control on, i only use the far left lane for passing, and i always keep an eye on my rearview mirror to make sure that i’m not obstructing anyone.

But i, like Rhythmdvl, get really frustrated by people who can’t maintain some semblance of a consistent speed on an open freeway, and who keep speeding up and slowing down so that we end up doing a fucking dance.

I actually had to get on my wife’s case about this a couple of years ago. We were driving home from a trip to San Francisco, and we were heading south on I-5 through California’s central valley. We were traveling behind a car, with both of us going about the same speed. After a while, my wife sped up to get around the car, and i assumed that she had just decided to drive a little faster. But once she passed the guy, she moved back into the right-hand lane, and reduced her speed again, so much that the guy was passing us again within a couple of minutes.

I asked her why she did that, and explained that all she had done was make the whole driving experience less comfortable for us and for the other guy, without in any way changing our overall speed.

If you’re on a regular two-way road, you often have to speed up in order to pass, and then slow back down again. But you shouldn’t do that on a freeway. If the guy in front of you is going at a speed that you are happy going, then just sit behind him. If he’s going too slow, then pass. But don’t pass and then slow down, because it just makes freeway driving far more stressful than it needs to be.