I really, really hate road rage. A driving instructor should not be engaging in any type. Getting out of a car when someone has challenged you is never a good idea. You should not be with students if you cannot control your behavior. Teach by example.
But it was a fat guy . . . in a pick-up, a fat guy . . . what else could he do!
CMC fnord!
I don’t know what Pittsburgh, PA is like, but in Pittsburg, CA (and th surrounding areas and most everywhere I have been), no police are going to show up for this and the most that might happen is they will let you file a report online or at the station. Said report will never, ever, be looked at.
OP: all trucks for sale for the past several years are full size. And is there anything you could do? Does this happen in a specific area? Was someone inadvertently cut off or something? Not that that is an excuse. Next time, hit the little button on the dashcam you should have by then, remain calm, and stay in the vehicle.
I see you’re a liar, too.
Girls, GIRLS! You’re both pretty.
Dashcam. A grille-mounted net gun for the misanthropes who approach your car. Pair of rubber hoses for you and your student to effect nonlethal violence upon the entangled ne’er-do-well–and remember, don’t stop till he poops. The dashcam should get all the action up to and including the beating. Post on social media. I will say if I were a juror on the inevitable lawsuit, the road rager would get nothing. And pay your defense costs. But yeah, you shouldn’t be stopping for road ragers. Call their bluff, make them actually run you off the road THEN you go after them for assault, attempted murder, etc.
ALL pickup drivers are assholes.
Possible exception for drivers of company-owned work trucks. But only possible.
Not to mention she doesn’t have a license, and IIRC he said he’s special needs. (I don’t know exactly what that means in this case, but it’s probably not going to be an asset in this kind of situation!)
I understand you didn’t start it, but anything that escalates road rage is asking for trouble. Getting out of your car is a terrible idea. I can’t say I’ve never gotten road rage, but I’ve learned to chill out a lot more than I used to.
To paraphrase Bill Hicks:
He’s on foot…you’re in a car…I think I see a way out of this!
I take exception to this in its entirety.
Piss off ya limp wanker
Pick up drivers as a whole aren’t assholes, though you seem to be.
think about next time you cut off that liveried truck, how much weight it’s carrying and how much stopping space you left.
When I first started at the ambulance, they all but literally beat into us to drive the vehicles extra responsibly because the organizations name was down the side in big, red letters & yes, people would call to complain/lessen their donations to our volunteer organzation. We got an old Caprice police car to use as a responder; it was repainted/relettered. There was a full red lightbar on the roof (only EMS & fire use all red, PD uses blue & red) “<name of> Ambulance” down the sides, & two blue stars of life with the word “Ambulance” between them on the back of the trunk. I took it up on the expressway somewhere I probably shouldn’t have been going (out of our jurisdiction) so was tooling along at about the speed limit; ain’t giving anybody the chance to bitch about my driving. It was open road in front of me & at one point, I looked in the rearview mirror at this huge line of traffic behind me & it dawned on me that no one would pass me despite an ambulance never pulling someone over to give them a ticket.
Yeah, people don’t read.
This. You’re not only teaching them how to drive physically but the experience of how to drive. You taught that girl the total wrong way to respond to a road rager. At most you should have yelled out to him that she’s a student driver learning how to drive & ask him to cut her some slack. What you do on your own is one thing but when you have students in your charge you need to act better.
Don’t those driver ed vehicles have dual controls?
Is that common now? When I took it, mumble mumble years ago, the instructor just had a brake pedal.
How do you know they weren’t all lawyers?
Took me a second, but well-done.
And the OP is a well-established dumbass with a well-established dumbass history, though I have to admit that I can’t immediately recall any specific moment of dumbassery and I’m not certain if this is due to my forgetfulness or his forgettableness. In any case, I don’t feel like searching for it.
Bravo.
To the OP: How big is the car you’re teaching in? Relative to the pickup truck I mean.
I feel your pain (see my location). My daily driver is an old, battered Corolla. Since I keep* to the speed limit, I spend a surprising amount of my commute with some asshole in a pickup riding my bumper. It is definitely bullying. On some days I have to take my giant truck in to work. It’s a long bed, crew cab, turbo diesel used for towing heavy loads. It weighs 8200 lbs empty and the beside it little F150s look like toys. On those days the assholes aren’t as interested in tailgating. Funny that.
I have a question: Has anyone, anywhere, ever seen or heard of law enforcement issuing a ticket for tailgating? Me neither.
*Don’t start – I’m not interested in opinions on whether I’m “holding up” drivers lacking the mental capacity to plan ahead or operate an alarm clock. I stay to the right-most lane, FWIW.
I’m hearing “Pinheaded Bullies in Pickup Trucks” as a country song.
Try “Pinheaded Pittsburgh Bullies in Pickup Trucks”, it seems to roll off the tongue a little better.
I used to around here, when we started getting a lot of folks from back east. Easterners are the worst drivers and you can generally tell who they are. They get right up on you like a bad wedgie and don’t go around you even if you’re the only two cars on a 4lane road. The second you turn or switch lanes they take off like someone rammed a redhot poker up their backside. Rarely are they pickup drivers, those folks just go around you as soon as they can.
The “pulled over specifically for tailgating” has dropped of significantly over the last few years though, as more and more people move into the area.