It's great when the system works... (stupid driver gets comeuppance thanks to MacTech)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This morning I was delivering a used 2006 Nissan Pathfinder to a customer who just purchased it from my local Saturn dealership, he was stationed at the Brunswick Maine Naval Air Station, and since the base is closing, he’s moving to his new base of operations in Florida, he was crunched for time, so we decided to run the vehicle up to him, and have the parts guy pick me up and drive me back to the dealership

anyway, I was going northbound on the Maine Turnpike (Route 95), doing the speed limit (65 MPH) in the rightmost lane, when a red VW Jetta with NH plates blew past me like I was standing still, and almost sideswiped the Pathfinder, I was annoyed, the guy was doing at least 85 MPH, as he passed me, I noticed that he had READING MATERIAL on his steering wheel, a brochure from the looks of it, the moron was speeding, weaving, driving recklessly, and frakkin READING…

I was pissed now…

So, out came my cell phone, I dialed the state police, gave them the vehicle description, plate number, and approxamite location, AND let them know that the jerk was READING something as well, they thanked me, and said they’d forward the info to the officers

Normally, this is where the story would end, but today was different…

no less than ten minutes later, I see the sleek, black form of a Maine State Trooper’s unmarked Ford Police Interceptor streak out from the median strip, pedal to the metal, rapidly becoming a dot on the horizon…

he had found prey, and was moving in for the kill…

In the distance ahead , I see two sets of brake lights illuminate, then move over from the “hammer lane” to the right hand side of the road, the officer had scored a kill, his tribe would eat well tonight…

as I approached the two parked cars, the rear facing blues flipped on, as the officer exited the vehicle to examine his quarry, I moved over one lane to give the officer safe room to maneuver, as I passed, the driver was handing his licence and registration to a rather annoyed looking Maine State Trooper (it took him about 5 minutes to catch up with the car he had stopped)I noticed the vehicle was…

a red VW Jetta, with NH plates, the same car that almost sideswiped me not ten minutes earlier :slight_smile:

the bastard got what he deserved! :smiley:

I waited until I was well-past them both before emitting a hearty Nelson Muntz-esque “HA-HAA!” and laughing at the top of my lungs for the next five minutes

I love it when the system works :slight_smile:

2

I salute you sir. Well done.

3

Ah, yes, the joy of seeing karma in action!

A couple of months ago, not long after school started, I was driving to work down a road which is two lanes in each direction. Someone was coming up behind me running 5 or 10 miles over the speed limit. Coming towards us in the opposite direction was a school bus with its orange lights on getting ready to stop. As the car passed me, I realized she wasn’t going to stop for the bus and, sure enough, when though the bus stopped and she had plenty of time and room, she didn’t. I honked my horn and then watched as a police car pulled out from behind the bus and pulled her over. I think she lost the time she was trying to gain by passing me and ignoring the bus.

4

Wait a moment. Did you use a hands-free device to place this call? If not, then you were driving unsafely as well.

5

Yes-ish on the handsfree thing, I used my iPhone’s voice control feature to dial the staties and I had the conversation in speakerphone mode, the phone was on the dash in the cubbyhole that the nav system sits in

6

There have been a few times when I have wanted to do this (call State Police on some moron).

Recently a dude was in the left lane, myself in the right. In front of him were a column of cars blocked by a slowpoke (don’t get me started on the idiots who hog the left lane). Anyway, the car in front of me took an exit and the moron saw his opening to try and pass on the right.

He cut in front of me by MAYBE a foot, just missing my bumper! I stayed calm and figured I’d ignore it.

Another car entered off the exit, blocking his attempt to pass on the right.

So, after a moment he sped up and cut in front of another car in the left lane, also by a foot. I mean, there wasn’t even really room. The guy put his blinker on and went left in, FORCING the other car to either collide with him, or break rapidly to make room.

Man I was mad to see that! So I floored it after the guy who entered off the ramp in front of me sped up quite a bit (if the moron stayed right he would have succeeded). The moron got caught again behind the left lane slowpoke and I was able to give him a nice salute.

Friggin bonehead.

7

FWIW, being on the phone while driving is dangerous even with a hands-free setup. However, sometimes there’s a choice to be made between potentially dangerous (making a quick call to the police) and more potentially dangerous (letting a demonstrably reckless driver go unreported).

8

I was able to do something like that a few years ago. Driving home from work on my 26 mile commute, I passsed a guy who was drinking a beer. Decided that he wasn’t a guy I wanted on the road I drive every day, so my passenger called 911. We let the guy pass us, and then tailed him for the next 10 miles, giving the dispatcher a update on the location. After about 10 miles, the guy figured out that we were following him and after that he kept glancing in his rearview mirror every 5 to 10 seconds. A minute later, he decided to do an illegal U-turn, I guess to get rid of us.
He did the U-turn right as the sheriff’s car pulled up alongside us.

9

It’s funny, the number of times I actually call from my cell phone at all, let alone in the car are so infrequent that I can count them on one hand, in the last six months, I’ve made perhaps less than a dozen calls from my cell

I’m on AT&T, and have almost 4,000 rollover minutes banked, if that tells you anything, so for a situation to exist that actually makes me pick up the phone while driving, it’s gotta be a pretty good reason

it would have been more potentially risky to allow Mr. SpeedingReader to continue on unimpeded and potentially cause an accident

10

Yup, definitely agree that it was a justified usage–I just couldn’t resist responding to what I saw as a “oh if you use a hands-free set it makes using a cell while driving perfectly safe” post.

11

A couple of years ago I was driving home from work. On one freeway the traffic always went from 40 to 0 to 40 mph through a particular five mile section. Everybody knows, everybody deals, and it doesn’t matter what lane you’re in. Get used to the people around you, you’re going to be seeing them for the next 10-15 minutes.

The guy in the blue Toyota Tacoma behind me apparently couldn’t get his head around the reality of the situation. He parked on my ass, we’d move and when it came time to stop he’d have to brake so hard the front end of his truck dipped every time. There are few things I hate more than having to keep one eye on the road ahead and one on the idiot behind me full time. I was dead certain he was going to rear end me.

The instant traffic started to ease he cut off a guy in the right lane then leap frogged his way around several different cars. I bid him good riddance.

FFW about five minutes and whom do I see pulled over on the side of the road with a motorcycle cop standing next to his car? The guy had been enough of a pain in the ass that I pulled over, dropped my window, turned the car off and put my hands on the door. The cop told the guy to wait and walked over to see what I needed.

I told him about the guy’s driving and reckless lane changes. The cop grinned, thanked me, gave me a clip board and a piece of paper and asked me to write down what I’d seen. The idiot’s speeding ticked got ratcheted up to an aggressive driving charge, which is a low-level felony in Arizona. He pleaded down to misdemeanor reckless operation, got a one year suspension and 90 days in jail with all but three days suspended.

12

We were prowling vintage clothing shops a few weekends ago, looking for Halloween costume parts, and a presumed homeless guy came in, swapped his pants and shoes for clean ones from the store and skedaddled.

I didn’t witness it, but one of us did, so they gave a description to the cops, and we went on our way. Stopped at another nearby shop, then off to the car.

When we get to the car, there’s a scruffy looking guy standing near it. “That’s him!” whispers R., and as if by magic, the cop he talked to at the shop drives around the corner. R. waves, points at the guy and says to the cop “That’s him.”

As we pull out, the crook was in the back of the cop car. Not a major win for anyone, but we’ll take what we can get.

13

About 20 years ago, I was driving just outside of Tucson, when the traffic line started to slow for a train crossing the road. There was full warning equipment at the crossing, bells and lights and a set of gates. The lead car swerved through the gates and across the track as they were lowering. To my surprise, I saw a Pima County Sheriff’s car put its flashers on and follow the guy through the gates. As fool-hardy as that move seemed to me, the deputy did pull over the guy who drove through the gates ahead of him. As the train crossed and traffic was on the move again, I saw the guy sitting on the side of the road with the deputy taking his time and writing him out the ticket. I’m just glad the deputy made it ahead of the train.