Inspired by this thread, and this part in particular…
Got me to chuckling (Sure, I can laugh about it now but it wasn’t very funny then!).
Driving along merely on my out way with my girlfriend (at the time), we were cut off by a car. It wasn’t just an absent minded kind of cut off but a fairly malicious and deliberate. I peered inside the offending vehicle and noticed four pretty tough looking guys (about our age back then which would be late teens). I knew they were looking to cause shit because the three of them were looking back at me through the back window to see what I’d do.
Now being pretty good at math I quickly did some quadratic equations in my head and came to the conclusion that 4 on 1 wouldn’t be a very fair fight and I’d likely come out the loser.
What happened next should have been my first clue that the relationship with my girlfriend was doomed to fail.
My date obviously did some rough math herself and decide that the appropriate response to this situation is to yell “Assholes!” out the window as loud as she could. (She was never any good at math but I think she wound up majoring at public relations.)
Predictably, the car ahead stopped (we were in semi-heavy traffic and moving slowly anyway) and two guys hopped out the back heading in our direction. I gathered they were not going to ask for directions. As I glance to my right to suggest that my date keep quiet and let me do some fast talking I was further delighted by the site of her giving them the one finger salute and greeting them with a hardy “Fucking assholes!”.
Realizing that we were deffinately past the fast talking stage, I noticed a clearing in the oncoming traffic lane, hit the gas and twisted the wheel to the left. I left the punks surprised and hauling their butts back into their car with the obvious intent to pursue. I did a few clever turns and headed for the on ramp to our ultimate destination. Fortunately, they did not or could not follow us and we never saw them again.
Not long after that, I made a concious decision to only date smarter and better classed women.
I have a story, for you Quicksilver but with a different flavor.
I was about 18 riding around outside of a neighborhood mall with three of my friends. Now I’m just driving along and this guy completely cuts me off. I flip him off casually and mutter something… (I’m 18 and a hard ass, y’know?) Well, still in front of me, we pull up to a red light.
My passenger-seat buddy decides to follow up on the harrassment by depressing the horn and pointing, alerting everyone at the intersection of who exactly is being honked at.
Turns green, we go, next thing I know the guy pulls hard into the left lane slams on the brakes. We pass, and now this guy is on my ass. Really on my ass.
We try and lose him, but he’s tailing me.
So my buddies and I get to wondering exactly what advantage this one (crazy-cockeyed-lookin’) guy has over the four of us. And worrying too. One kid actually started fashioning a crude shank out of my ice scraper! Good call!
I start panicking and after about 30 minutes of this taunting by him we finally lost him on the freeway and various evasive maneauvers.
Now, I never ever flip off anyone… you never know who you’re fuckin’ with sometimes.
Yeah, the old '86 Celebrity got me through some adventures.
When they were young, my mom flipped off another motorist while my dad was driving.
The offended motorist chased them down and ran my dad off the road. He gets in my dad’s face and things are definitely headed for a fight. My dad says “follow me”, walks around to my mom’s door, opens it, and says “she did it, deal with her.”
The guy refused to fight my mom (and really, my dad wouldn’t have let him) and my mom never flipped anybody off again.
My dad scared the living shit out of me by flipping off some guy who cut us off. Jesus Christ, Dad, if you’re gonna endanger yourself, PLEASE do it when I’m not in the car!
This is why i always carry a baseball bat in the trunk of my car for… uh… emergencies. You never know when someone is gonna need an emergency beat down
Ah, high school, the halcyon days of yore, when all of your friends considered themselves immortal, and your car to be their getaway vehicle Just In Case.
I was driving, and there were three others in the car; two girls and another guy. It was late at night on a Saturday and we pulled into the parking lot of a local park just to chat and enjoy the night air. Another car was parked at the far end, and my friend in the front passenger seat reached across me and flashed my headlights at the other car. Their engine started up, peeled back, and started coming in our direction.
I decided at this point that discretion was the better part of valor (and there was no way I was defending that moron’s honor), so I pulled out and drove away … only to see the headlights in my rearview mirror come up behind me, and very close.
Thinking that it would be a problem to have to come to a stop, I drove a circuitous route that avoided stoplights or stop signs, and started heading down the highway, still followed by the mystery car. They only stopped chasing when I turned into the parking lot of the State Patrol Headquarters, and their motion-based floodlights kicked in and illuminated the entire area.
I kept that in mind whenever I was tempted to flip off a motorist or mutter some obscenity, but over the past year due to other stresses I got in the habit of yelling at other drivers who were being idiots, but with my windows firmly rolled up. I realized that this was not a safe method once I shouted “Jesus, you moron!” at someone who turned in front of me … with my window down.
My wife is a lunatic. (but then she married a divorced guy with three boys so I should have known that but…) she once got into a shouting match with a guy who cut her off on 880. They continue yelling and cutting each other off until my wife hits Marina Blvd where she gets off the freeway. The guy follows her off the freeway, unbeknowst to him however, was that she was heading to my job to pick me up a block and a half away.
Now here I am standing by the fence to the parking lot. I’m talking with 4 or 5 co-workers. I see my wife’s car come around the corner, tires squeeling. Right behind her is another car also moving pretty fast but I don’t think anything of it. My wife pulls into the lot, jumps out the car and says “Hi Honey” just as the other car begins to pull into the lot.
Everyone looks up at the new driver. The driver takes a look, screeches out of the driveway in reverse and takes off. Meanwhile my wife is standing there with the most evil grin on her face. For a woman who’s 5’2" and 115lbs soaking wet, she’s got a lot courage.
I HATE HATE HATE when my girlfriend honks my horn at people when I’m driving. I’ve yelled at her a few times for it and she finally stopped (well she hasn’t done it again yet).
She also has this habit of telling people that “My Karate man will kick your ass”. So far she’s only said this to her male friends, but these are guys that I don’t really know personally, so it still makes me nervous. I don’t want to fight anyone, I only study Karate for the event where I’m forced to defend myself (hopefully never). Plus I’'ve only been doing it for a year.
I don’t flip people off. I have said some choice words before, but alway with the window up. I guess the worst thing I do is if someone tailgates me I’ll hit the brakes, if I’m alone. Geesh that pisses people off, but if you are close enough to my vehicle that you can’t see my rear lights then you are taking the chance of buying me a new car. Any policeman, highway patrolman, etc. will tell you up front that you’ll get the ticket for following too close. In almost all incidents that involve rear-end collisions the driver in the back gets the ticket.
If someone flips me off, I simply smile at them and give them my ‘parade’ wave.
Bat, hell. Go get yourself an… I can’t remember the name but it is a bit from an oil drill. It is shaped like a T and the bottom of the ‘T’ is very sharp (it is the bit) and about 6 inches long. You take the bit and hold it in your palm forming a fist with the the top of the bit end coming out between your middle two fingers of the fist. Saved me from a couple of probable ass whippings (I’m 5’8" 170 lbs).
The intimidation factor of this is great because it looks nasty and it is a weapon never seen by them before and used in a way never seen by them before. Never had to actually use it, thank God.
Yeesh, and I drive on the same road as you people?
I don’t get upset on the road, but my best friend does. She’s got this lil’ white Mustang, and she’s constantly cursing up a storm whenever she’s behind another vehicle travelling slower than her. Even when she has the top down.
She’s just lucky that she’s often got her boyfriend and me in the car with her… I’m 6’3", 250 lbs, and he’s a good 6’7". Pretty imposing.
We’re driving home at about 10:00 pm from my father’s in my in-laws Suburban with the kids in the middle seats. We’re first at a red light, and some wise-ass punks in a rinky-dink Integra come screaming through the left-turn lane and cut in front of us, going straight (who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t timed it right). Absolutely despising selfish assholes on the road, I flick the brights at them. They come to a complete stop. So I shine the brights. The three kids in the back seat are looking back, and there’s lots of chatter between all five obviously trying to decide how many could there be in that big truck. They slowly start moving, I leave the brights on. Their only response, other than stopping twice more, is to hold their middle fingers up.
My wife had this horrible habit of waving pedestrians or drivers coming out of parking lots or whoever on their way. From the passenger seat. Without any control of the accelerator, brakes or steering. Or any idea what I was going to do…
I’d have to start my own message board to have enough room to tell all my freeway horror stories. Just today there was a jumper on an overpass which fouled the tri-state for an amazing length of time.
I just get out my little book and write down the offender’s license number. I have over four thousand of these numbers so far. I use a yellow marker to highlight multiple offenders, and I make special notation of particularly talented morons.
I’m going to be buried with that book, and when I enter hell, I will give it to Satan himself and ask him for the opportunity to personally torment those souls for the balance of eternity.
Back in High School, one of the coaches who also taught American History, gave us some advice about carrying bats in your car. He said to have a bat, ball and glove in your car not just a bat. Just makes it easier to explain to the cops. If all else fails, you could ask them if they want to play catch.
In my defense, I got my basic training in advanced driving delivering pizza in downtown Providence, RI. But to me, flipping some idiot the bird was as essential a part of driving as turning the radio down when you’re looking for a street sign.
So when I got to Tucson, it didn’t occur to me that this particular gesture might offend people.
So, I flipped off a trucker who made an idiotic turn right in front of me. And he followed me. For blocks. I caught sight of him, up in the cab of his truck, red-faced and saying things which, while I couldn’t hear them, I assumed were unpleasant.
He followed me until I got to a stop sign, where I got out of my car.
Me: “You want a piece of me?”
Him: (Clambering down out of his truck, and looking enormous) “I sure fucking do.”
Me: “Too bad.”
And I got back into my car, and drove off. It took him a while to get out of his truck; I have no idea how long it took to get back in and get up to speed.
I have since adopted more refined finger gestures.
