This morning I was approaching an intersection where I had to turn left. I got stuck behind some dumbshit going 45 in a 55. I had some extra time and decided to be civil and just tag along inside of race around him and zip back in so I wouldn’t miss the left turn lane. This guy was turning left, too, and he was in front of me. After we made the turn this prick STOPPED right in the roadway! We had entered a construction zone. The shoulder was barreled off and there was no middle lane, just the lane for opposing traffic. It was about 5:45 AM and there was light traffic. At first I wasn’t sure what the problem was. Maybe his vehicle broke down, maybe he had a medical emergency, so I played it cool. I put my window down and asked him what the problem was. He said, “I don’t like you following me so close!” I told him he was going too damn slow. I don’t remember what he said after that, but I just said “Whatever.” He then said, “Yeah, whatever yourself!” I said up, “up yours, asswipe!” as he returned to his vehicle. He then proceeded down the roadway. By this time I was raging pissed, so when he began to turn off I blared my horn and flipped him the bird. He then aborted his turn and proceeded to follow me, tailing me as I turned into my place of work. I was hoping I’d see one of the security people driving around, but I didn’t see anyone. I went to my parking space and he pulled up behind me. I stayed in my car, windows up, doors locked. I keep a two-foot length of metal pipe in my car for such emergencies and I was ready to club him if he made any advances. He sat there for about two minutes, probably waiting for me to get out and confront him. Eventually he gave up and went on. Had I gotten his license plate number (I was too shaken at the time to have thought to do this) I would have reported him to the security office in case he decides to come back.
A simple tap of the brakes would have been enough. When people do this I back off and don’t provoke the other driver, but when people do shit like stop in the middle of the road to make their point they’re taking it too far. Next time he may piss off someone with a gun in his car (and personally, I hope he does). ROAD RAGE ISN’T THE ANSWER, YOU STUPID FUCK!
I meant “instead of”, not “inside of” in my second sentence. :smack: That’s what I get for writing while still boiling with rage instead of waiting until I’m relaxed.
It is just amazing how fast one’s blood boils in that sort of situation. I’m a mild-mannered guy, but a few times I’ve been shaking quivering mad after some dumbass little driving incident that ordinarily I’d just shrug off. I suspect caffeine level has something to do with it
Way to re-escalate the situation just as you were going to be rid of him. I’m not saying I haven’t done the same thing, but I sure wouldn’t be surprised if someone decided they needed the last word.
I wouldn’t go threatening people with a pipe unless you are really certain it is called for. I’m sorry to say you are just shy of half of the problem here, and even that is assuming your spin on events isn’t weighted in your favor.
Yeah… failing marks for everyone as far as self-control goes. I think the fact that he was willing to get out of his car apropos of nothing to tell you that he didn’t like what you were doing should have shown clearly that he had no problem with escalating a minor situation.
Of course, you’ve probably had time to analyze the situation by now and realized that you were both in the wrong. Most people probably would’ve done something similar. Chalk it up to the game is all I say…
I want to cut the OP some slack. He didn’t say he had brandished the pipe or anything like that. He simply had it nearby (I keep my heafty flash light in my glove box for the same reason).
What we don’t know is how close dwc1970 was following the other driver. If the 45 in the 55 zone is correct then most of us would have probably done the same thing (ie keep close in hopes of making the other guy speed up). Stopping on the road is taking it too far. If the guy had stopped, I wouldn’t have spoken to him, I would have rev’ed my car up and peeled around him as close as I could (done it several times).
The fact that the other driver wasted his time following dwc1970 to his workplace means the other guy was much more serious about the incident than dwc1970 was (seriously, how many people would waste that kind of time doing something like that? I wouldn’t).
These days I really can’t bother with people not driving properly. I normally don’t look at them if I had to make an agressive move (pass on the left/right whatever) but I do make an effort to stare at stupid drivers when I haven’t done anything to make them mad at me (like slow old people driving 15 km/h in a 60 zone at night without their lights on).
Look, if you’re going to call people names and provoke someone into following you with your stupidity the very least you could do is be man enough to take the ass whipping that you got coming to you. Why do people find it so easy to scream and taunt someone from within their moving car when they would never do such things if they were on foot? If you’re not man enough to fend for yourself, then just keep your mouth closed.
Road rage is usually a two party thing. You do something to piss someone off, they make a remark or beep the horn. You feel like your pride has been attacked so you take it to the next level (I’m not referring to this situation just the scenario of how most play out). It is at this point that you have contributed to the rage. If you are not able or unwilling to defend yourself why provoke them?
According to the OP YOU were the first to insult by using profanity aimed at the driver. You were the first one to use the childish middle finger. And, you were the one that continued to goad him after the incident was pretty much over.
Had that have been me in the car, I would have been as non-confrontational as possible, but do not mistake lack of desire to confront with weakness (weakness: you rolling up your windows and locking the door and nearly soiling yourself with fear, hoping the big bad security guards will come to your aid and clean up your mess), as if you continue to be a problem, I will promptly use you as a trampoline. If you look carefully over what you have posted, you SHOULD find that if anyone was guilty of road rage, IT WAS YOU! Your counterpart is simply guilty of bad driving.
Grow some balls or shut the hell up, please, because if I am a mile behind you two and late for work, and I am further being held up by your childishness and stupidity, I had better see one of you kick the shit out of the other. Otherwisen I’ll kick both your asses.
There was a time when two people pissed each other off on the road, got out of their cars and kicked the hell out of one another. They got back up, brushed themselves off and headed their seperate ways. Later they’d see one another in a bar and one would send over a beer and they would then exchange a look of respect, a nod and the rest is history. They used to make beer commercials out of this very thing.
Right, because the logical, fully justifiable reaction to be called a name is to resort to violence. That’s absolutely the most mature, grown-up course of action to take in that sort of situation.
Yes Jeff Olsen - I’d agree there. You just never know when someone on the end of a smartass remark is gonna ramp up the aggro in a way, WAY beyond what you expected. I’d rather just show some humility and offer an apology along the lines of showing contrition and empowering the “other guy” to think they got their point across and also had the last word.
Sometimes, as a driver I still make mistakes - it’s part of being human. I learnt long ago that in the presence of a possibility for road rage, it’s a really smart thing to assess very quickly if you did in fact make a mistake, and then if you did, apologise with gestures and smiles etc as quickly as possible.
Obviously, on rare occasions, someone will be angry with you and you’ve got no honest idea why. In these cases, I’m even more apologetic and or pacifying in my nature - after all, I assume under these circumstances that “the other guy” really has a grudge of some sort and WANTS to escalate things beyond my control - so I can’t wait to get away in those circumstances without making one teeny weeny little contribution to further aggro.
That is not necessarily the case. There have been occasions where I have either made an honest mistake, or done nothing at all to provoke road rage in another driver. I am the most non-confrontational driver you can find, and It has been my experience that no matter how you act behind the wheel, a driver with road rage will always find something about you to bother them.
Road rage is not about what other drivers do to you, it’s about how you manage your emotions when you drive. Those who can’t manage their emotions properly, suffer from it.
We may have hit full testosterone overload here. I’d say the same people who scream and taunt within their car are much the same as people who tell people to grow balls and take an ass beating from the safety of their keyboard.
The other guy was simply guilty of bad driving? The OP may have demonstrated that DWC was the first to use profanity, but I’d hardly think a sane person would stop their car in the middle of the road to bitch about someone following too close, so it would seem both people are at fault. DWC would have been smarter (as someone else suggested) to wait for traffic to pass in from the other direction and steer around this person who is obviously a gene or two away from throwing their own feces at the zoo.
And as for waxing nostalgic about the good old days when people just pulled over and kicked the shit out of each other, give me a break. That sounds straight out of a teenage boy fantasy of being a tough guy complete with some idiocy about a beer commercial.
Everybody talks a good game until they are the one faced with the psycho. If you’re foolish enough to get out and take on someone who is obviously out of their skull, please don’t waste the paramedic’s time by calling 911. Stitch your own head up Rambo.
Yup, I just finished re-reading the OP, and I’m going to have to say that dwc probably was as much to blame in this situation as the other guy. That’s a lot of hostility radiating off of his OP.
We all think we’re great drivers, and we all think that we’re always doing the right thing, but who are those guys following too closely, driving too slowly, driving with no awareness of what’s going on, speeding, undertaking, making unsafe turns, not using signals, et freakin cetera every day? That’s right, ALL OF US. We’re ALL the bad drivers.
