I worked a long distance from home. (Heh. Always has been the case with me.) I was riding my motorcycle home from work one afternoon. In California, it’s legal for motorcycles to ride between lanes of traffic. (At least, it’s not illegal.) This cat in an older, full-sized American car kept moving left, to intentionally block me from progressing. As it happened, there was an opening wide enough for me to safely pass so I hit the throttle. The arsehole decided he’d flip me off… and my right mirror smacked his hand hard. That had to have hurt.
I was riding perfectly legally, the guy was being a jerk, and then he received some pain (or worse) for his jerkishness.
Angry, aggressive sports car tailgating me – the lanes had shrunk due to construction and he didn’t like my cautious speed around the workers. Large metal object in the middle of the road, and tailgate-guy discovers new facts about clearance height. Specifically the difference between 4WD pickups and tiny sports cars.
I rolled over it harmlessly. He did not. (Wasn’t hurt, just disabled)
Here’s a “good” instant karma story that happened to me. At a former job, maybe about 6 years ago, I was getting off the highway exit to work when I saw a guy pulled over on the shoulder of the exit lane, trying to change a tire. He was well dressed and didn’t look like he knew where to start. I had a 5 ton jack in the back of my Jeep, which was good because he was driving a Jeep Commander, a model that was big and heavy, sort of the Suburban of Jeeps. I wouldn’t have wanted to try the flimsy jack that no doubt came standard.
I got his tire changed in 10 minutes. He said he had been on his way to the airport to catch a plane for a job interview, had been out of work for awhile, and if it wasn’t for me he probably would have missed his flight. He offered me money but I declined.
At the place i worked they had a monthly “Hero” award, usually meant for employees who do something above and beyond for the company, but a co-worker had seen me changing the tire and nominated me for that month, and I won $50.
I was stopped at a red light next to a little smart car or Cooper or something. When the light turned green must of thought I was accelerating aggressively to show off and make him feel small and powerless. (I really wasn’t) He hit the accelerator hard, and passed me at a high rate of speed As he passed, I noticed a collection of MAGA stickers on his car, the usual asshole stuff Trump people like.
About 1/2 mile down the road he was on the shoulder getting a ticket.
Many moons ago, I wanted to leave my current job at a printing company and interviewed around. I was offered a job at another printing company. The toad owner wanted me immediately, so I wound up giving 2 days notice to my old job. The first day at the new job, I was sick and could barely stand, but I didn’t want to call in sick on my first day. I struggled through that day, didn’t meet my quota, and the toad owner called me up that night and fired me. I had just quit a job and lasted one day at the new one.
I eventually found a new job at a better place, and one day had to call a printer repairman. I knew the guy from when he repaired machines at a previous workplace. He told me the toad owner sold the business to somebody else and retained an executive position. The new owner eventually fired his toad ass.
That’s always sweet. I had something like that happen once on one of our local parkways. It’s a single-lane road with lots of twists and turns, many of which are blind curves due to the trees along the route. Speed limit of 60km/hr, but most people do 80.
Now, this route is technically on Federal Government of Canada land, so it’s patrolled by the RCMP, but as you can imagine, traffic duty on a parkway is usually not a priority. But every now and then, they get enough complaints that they patrol more often. So, one of those times, I’d noticed the extra patrols that week, so I was sticking to the speed limit. The guy behind me eventually gets frustrated, and passes me on a curve, even though there were upcoming, much safer places to pass. About a minute later, I pass him pulled over by the RCMP.
I’m wary driving through Mount Vernon, WA. There just seems to be more State Patrol vehicles there than anywhere else. (OK, one; maybe two. But I see it/them more often there.) The speed limit there is 60 mph. (Outside of towns, it’s 70.) I usually set 63 mph on my cruise control, estimating there’s a 2 mph error and I’m actually doing 61.
One day a lifted, full-size pickup flying MAGA flags came tearing by in the left lane of the freeway. I passed him as he was receiving a citation.
Funny how a lot of these stories have to do with driving. Here’s mine.
About 20 years ago, I was driving on I-70 across Missouri in a blinding snowstorm. Everybody on the road is driving really slow and cautious, when from out of nowhere some dumbass in a silver colored Nissan Z car, no lights on, practically invisible, comes flying past me. I thought to myself “that’s not going to end well.” About ten miles down the road, there’s the Z car in the median, straddling a pair of guardrails sideways.
While in a lift line on a ski trip with friends, we came across an incredibly belligerent man. I can’t remember what set him off but but he wanted to fight me and menacingly raised his poles. We told a lift operator who radioed ahead. Sure enough, a couple of Ski Patrol were there to greet him at the top.
Got caught by a manager in the cafeteria at work a few minutes early. Said he was going to write me up even though I told him I was working through lunch which I did almost every day. Later that day I am outside the factory getting some equipment moved by transportation. Standing outside off company property is this same manager smoking a cigarette. It wasn’t break time, per company rules, smoking is allowed only on breaks and lunch. The next morning I was talking to a gal from HR about what happened and what I saw. She told me not to worry. Sure enough, 2 days later the manager comes and gets me to take me to HR. His smile was soon turned upside down. She refused his request for a CAM (corrective action memo) because she saw me working during lunch on the day I was caught in the cafeteria. But at the request of our factory manager, this manager received a CAM for smoking during working hours. This included a day off without pay and a 90 day warning. She also warned him that any retribution towards me would be treated harshly and that he was not to contact me unless we were in the presence of my manager. All this made my job a lot easier.
What’s a “toad” owner? Did he look like one or is it a specific pejorative?
Another highway one. In a recent Pit thread on highway assholes I documented how some people, when one truck is slowwwllllyyy passing another (asshole #1), and people are piled up in the left lane waiting to get around both that some twat (#2) will invariably zoom up in the right lane and cut in front of everybody.
In GA a few years ago was like 3rd in line, and yep a white pickup comes along at warp speed and cuts in front of me, missing my bumper by mere feet. As he zoomed off into the infinity ahead I intoned (GA typically has a lot of highway patrol speed traps) “If a statie is up ahead he is toast.”
I was in the HOV lane (which is not a super-left-lane), going about 10 over, and somebody comes flying up behind me. They tailgate me for a few seconds, illegally swerve around me when I slow down, and then continue down the big hill at probably 30+ over, right into a speed trap.
I didn’t brake check them, I just slowed down because I could clearly see a cop at the bottom of the hill. I don’t know if they got dinged for just speeding, or also for the illegal pass.
As we passed them being pulled over, one of my passengers said, “I’m sure they blame you.”
When somebody wants to go faster than me, I really want them to get around me. Dude, as soon as there is a clear spot I’ll get over, so then you can race ahead and be chaff to collect the speed traps out front.
Yep. If they aren’t going to the hospital, they have zero excuse. I’ve never brake checked, but I will pull over in a save spot (2 lane highways is all I drive) and let them go.
I was working as a bagger at a grocery store. A customer came through and asked if I could make the bags extra light, because she couldn’t lift very much. I packed the order in four paper bags instead of two, and the customer was happy.
Then the new front end manager came over, snapped at me for packing so inefficiently, and combined things to show me how the four bags could have been two. Then the customer told the front end manager that I’d packed them exactly as requested, and that she couldn’t carry those two heavy bags, and they’d need to be repacked back into four.
At this point the front end manager then yelled at me to get back to work, so I went off to bag a different register as the red faced manager put the groceries back the way I’d originally had it.
Yet another time where the person on the pointy end of karma thought it was my fault.
My wife’s family used to have a cabin up in central Wisconsin. My wife and I had spent a long weekend over New Year’s at the cabin, along with another couple with whom we’re friends. When we went to drive back to Chicago, it was snowing, and traffic was slow; we were probably doing between 20 and 40 mph on the highway, because the roads were pretty slick.
We were just north of Madison, Wisconsin, on I-90/94, when this fool in a very nice BMW passed us. He was doing at least 55, probably more, and weaving in and out of traffic as he sought to pass all of the slow-moving cars in his way. As he shot past us, we remarked on his idiocy.
Ten minutes later, as we crept along past an exit ramp, there was Mr. BMW, having slid off the road; he had smashed into the end of a guard rail at the ramp, doing substantial damage to the front end of his car in the process.
Sorry about that “used to”, Up Nort’ Dere is beautiful country.
But you do NOT try to drive back to civilization in bad weather. We learned the hard way, and we were going so slow in whiteout conditions that it got dark. With truckers flying past, inches from the driver’s door.
We ended up pulling over at a rest stop and putting the kids in sleeping bags. We all napped off and on until morning.
We were driving out to the boonies to pick up my teenage nephew and his girlfriend to take them to a movie. We were three or four cars back in a rather slow snake moving through some winding mountains, the kind with lots of 35mph corners and no places to pass. Everyone just resigned themselves to being stuck behind a slowpoke. Except for the last guy in line who decided he was going to pass 4 or 5 cars at a time on what passed – in his mind, at least – for a straight section. So he goes flying past all of us like a bat out of hell, pulling in front of the first car just in time to miss an oncoming car: a county sheriff patrol car. The deputy did a U-turn, hit his lights, and went after Mr. Hotshot. We all passed them a mile or so later, pulled over. My wife and I got a good laugh.
However, 20 minutes later on the return trip not only was Mr. Hotshot’s car still pulled over but there were now two more cop cars parked on the shoulder in front of him. There was nobody in his car so I assume he was taking an unscheduled rest in the back of one of the cruisers. I’ve always wondered what the cop found or what he did to get detained.