Responding to Traffic jerks

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

MODS- Please feel free to move this thread if required - thanks FML

I am NOT talking about those who lack driving skills! I am talking about those drivers who are “purpose driven” jerks of the road, and how you respond to them.

Two of my favorites:

  1. Two lane freeway, got behind two guys driving pararell, preventing trafic from using the “fast” lane to overtake them. I was going to be late for work, and as I had to open up, it meant that other staff would be standing around in the cold while I waited behind the two bozos. There was a line up of cars about 20 deep behind them, and I was 1st in line.

So, I drove between them, at speed, barely missing their vehicles by less than a few inches on either siode. I drew up level with their windows, I took my hands off the wheel and flipped both the bird simultainiously - letting them know that I didn’t exactly care for their behavoir. Putting my hands on the wheel I sped past them, grinning as I watched in the rear view mirror; the bozo in the left lane speed up, pulled into the slow lane and let the train of trapped cars speed past them. I imagine I wasn’t the only one who flipped them the bird as they were passed.

I feel real bad about the irresponsible driving, and know how bad it would have been if it had of caused an accident, these road rage inducing assholes probably learned a lesson there… at least I hope so.

  1. We have speed regulated school zones in our nieghbourhood. One day, as I was pulling out of my driveway, a car going easily 80km/hr (50ish mph) went whipping past, and then seemed to accelerate toward the school zone. It was lunch time, and kids litterally had to scatter to get out of the way of this maniac. It was a conspicuous car (Irridescent paint with black flame/tribal paint overlay).

When I got to the store… there it was, the same car!

So I waited… sure enough this car was driven by an over indulged little bozo. I moved my car behind his (to keep him from backing out), and called the police. Until I arrived, I harrangued this little snot up one side and down the other. I even made up a copuntry where they took drivers like him and cut their hands off. (The little fart was too stupid to doubt me). I grew up on a farm. I am 6 ft tall, and threw bales until I was 19… Not a “charles atlas” body, but I can be intimidating if I am inspired. By the time the police arrived, I had phoned the school, and let them know as well. It seems the school had reported the little “walking advertisment for birth control” to the cops as well.

The cops found a bunch of neat baggies of 1/4 oz pot in his car… too cool.
Yeah I took risks each time, both arguably very stupid. I am old enough and have, I feel the right to make a risky choice once and a while…

I do feel bad about the first one… if it had gone wrong, it would have been a multi car pile up…

The second one… I just grin about…

FML

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I’m not sure what you’re looking for here.

In the first instance you were promoting road rage. This could have been the result of your actions.

Secondly, meh, I dunno. If the car was speeding, report it to the police. Blocking the car and getting personal with the driver might have cost you more than he. This time you got off lucky with a punk who was prepared to wait for the police to arrive. Next time you might not be so fortunate.

3

Last week, I unexpectedly had to start on a two hour drive home, at ten o’clock at night. My bed time when I have to get up for work is usually around nine, so I was tired to begin with and it had been a very long day. I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed.
The drive home is along a twisty coastal highway. I was cruising along at 55-60 mph, not dangerously fast, right about the speed limit. I came up behind this guy that seemed to be moving kind of slowly, but I figured he was just being cautious around a set of curves–except that he didn’t speed up when conditions warranted it. We went through a very long, clear, lighted tunnel and he was still going about 35 mph. I finally flashed my brights at him (one single one-second flash) after we’d passed several turn-out lanes which he’d showed no indication of noticing.

Instantly, he slammed on his brakes and proceeded to crawl along at 15 mph. We were still on this twisty highway with one blind curve after another where there was no chance of safely passing him, and every chance of someone moving at a normal rate of speed plowing into us from behind. He continued to do this for twenty minutes. At the time I was so tired and so boggled by the whole thing, that it literally blew my mind. I couldn’t understand why, and furthermore, wtf do I do about it? I can’t pass him. I’m already exhausted and this asshole is going to keep me on the road for how much extra time?

I called my husband in a state of complete bewilderment and he offers this amazing, brilliant flash of insight: “why don’t you call 911 and tell them he’s driving erratically?”

“…”

I hang up and just as I was about to call… we came to a straightaway and I just finally had a chance to safely pass him. He, of course, turned on his brights as soon as I got in front.
The stupid thing is, I just sped up to 55 and distanced him in a few seconds anyway. Even without pinning me behind him he didn’t speed up… so why the assholery? I still have no idea.

I guess my point is, at no point did I feel that getting aggressive was going to be the best way to get me the fuck out of there and safely home. It occurred to me to turn my brights on him or take a chance in passing him on a blind curve, but I didn’t want to squabble with the guy and I didn’t want to end up smeared down the side of a cliff because this guy was a dick and pushed my buttons.

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I just want to point out that the kind of behavoir I exhibited was the exception, not the rule, if I hadn’t done that adequately enough in my OP
FML

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OK… Ii admit in both cases falling victim to road rage. It was the exception, not the rule… generally I am a very courteous, paitient driver. But in both cases, my acts fixed the problem… I guess examples of that is what I am looking for.

PS- if you reread my post, I more or less acknowledge the issues you are obliquely refering too

FML

6

I think that might be your answer to the alleged “assholery”, maybe he’s driving in the dark on an unfamiliar stretch of road and he has no idea where the next blind curve is, nor where it’s safe to overtake or not.

There’s a stretch of road in Scotland I’ve driven down in the dark a few times, it runs from Port Glasgow down to Largs along the coast so there’s a drop on one side down to the water. The speed limit there is variable, from 30mph up to 70mph. I’ve rarely driven at any more than about 40mph because I know it’s a twisty road and the lack of lighting makes it hard to see where the surface water is lying and what conditions you’re driving in.

Personally I wouldn’t feel safe driving any faster than that and having some speedfreak idiot come up behind me flashing their lights isn’t going to make me go any faster.

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Dunnow, ScareyFaerie, the “instant slam” sounds like the kind’a guy who says “oh, you think I’m going too slow? Here, eat S.L.O.W.”

She’d been after him for quite a while, it wasn’t your typical “I’m doing 50 in a stretch of road that’s marked 50 and some bimiot comes along flashing like his car’s about to give birth to puppies.”

8

Sounds like the jerk is you.

In both examples you decided to take potentially dangerous actions far in excess of the offense because for some reason you took someone elses bad or reckless driving as a personal affront.
I remember one time back in high school some crazy old man chased my car down because I accidently cut him off at an intersection. So this crazy guy gets out of his car and starts screaming at me. As it happens I was on my way back from the paintball store and my gun is in the front seat with me. Now if I felt this guy was an actual threat or if I just thought it would be a funny story later on, maybe I decide to shoot him in the face with it? Or maybe I’m not a law abiding kid and it is an actual gun in the front seat with me?

The moral is it’s not such a great idea to provoke assholes on the road. At best you annoy someone who’s already a high strung and pissed off asshole and at worst you cause an accident.

Do you really want to be sitting next to a pile of smashed cars waiting to tell the cops that you caused a three car pileup because you took your hands off the wheel to give two cars the finger, illegally squeezing between them?

I bet you’d feel pretty stupid.

9

Once again, I encourage you to re read the OP, where I acknowleged the stupidity of my actions. Also in terms of the situation, I would have been the one least likely to actuallu be involved in the pile up.

BUT… the two assholes who created the situation in the first place will in the future, no doubt think twice about engaging in such assholery… no doubt drastically lessening the chance of such a ple up occuring again.

In the secdond case, I had that little opunk pinned and planted before he could have done anything, including reaching for a gun. As in most social intimidation situations, it was simply a case of demonstrating who was the dominant mutated plains ape. I Had that won hands down, before I got out of the car…

ya gotta see the big picture, and ya gotta read the OP closely…

FML

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FML, so let’s see, your reason for driving fast (late for work) perfectly legitimizes you performing a driving maneuver that put you and other drivers at risk. Maybe the two parallel pokies were using their technique to compel their fellow motorists to actually, like you know, observe the posted speed limit. Certainly an improvement on your technique which includes illegally blocking in another car, physically -with that big old six foot frame- and verbally harassing him. Would you have excused his driving if he had been late for work?

As for NajaNivea, I suppose you see nothing wrong with bearing down another car, riding right up on his ass and pushing him down the road even though you acknowledge the physical conditions of the road may have warranted him driving slowly.

Yeah those Traffic Jerks, when will they learn?

11

Well, they were purposely being jerks in that they were traveling about 20 km/hr less than the posted speed limit. I do NOt ordinarily behave like that, I am an excellent driver (grew up on a farm, been driving huge, hard to steer vehicles since I was 8). My “action” was a calculated risk, based on my skill, and designed to show the butt-heads exactly how stupid their behavoir was. It was -20 c, and I had staff waitimg outside due to the two “siamese twins”. No doubt you would be the first one to cry out for the hypothermia I created by being so inconsiderate to arrive late.

And, if you read my OP and consequent posts, you will see that I am a patient and courteous driver. This thread is about incidences that people have been motivated to be “rude” drivers.

In reality, stupid drivers NEED to be taught a lesson, and once and a while we can do that.

12

I still have nightmares about driving in Scotland, especially after taking a subtle wrong turn once and getting off on a progressively narrower one-lane track with a severe drop-off on the right-hand side, with no place to turn around.

I also loved the single-lane roads where you got to negotiate with the oncoming drivers as to who had right of way.

I think it’ll take years for the claustrophobia to subside.

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[QUOTE=minlokwat]
FML, so let’s see, your reason for driving fast (late for work) perfectly legitimizes you performing a driving maneuver that put you and other drivers at risk. Maybe the two parallel pokies were using their technique to compel their fellow motorists to actually, like you know, observe the posted speed limit. Certainly an improvement on your technique which includes illegally blocking in another car, physically -with that big old six foot frame- and verbally harassing him. Would you have excused his driving if he had been late for work?

As for NajaNivea, I suppose you see nothing wrong with bearing down another car, riding right up on his ass and pushing him down the road even though you acknowledge the physical conditions of the road may have warranted him driving slowly.

Yeah those Traffic Jerks, when will they learn?
[/QUOTE
]
I was NOt late for work… I was timed to be about 20 minutes early… except for those siamese twins… You had no right to make that assumption, and I will from here on assume you exhibit the samew mind set as those slow moving jerks. You lack intellectual accumen, and take every opportunity to keep people moving as slow as you.

14

minlokwat , that is brilliant.

I didn’t take her story as such. The guy was going WAY too slow on the road. Slower than necessary to be cautious. Like she said, a car moving at normal speed could have easily come around a corner behind her and plowed into her (and the guy in front of her). 15 MPH is ridiculously slow, even on a curvy road.

You did say in the OP that you were going to be late for work. You never made it clear that you would have been early if not for these other drivers. Don’t insult others’ intelligence simply because you can’t communicate your story effectively.

15

Yeah, those two assholes made me late for my train that day!

I’m all for teaching bad drivers a lesson, but the potential for disaster was way too high. Your risk assessment skills are very poor, since you only have appeared to have taken your driving skill into consideration. With the lineup behind these drivers you describe, if either of the two drivers had reacted poorly to your actions (swerving or over correcting), you could have left a wake of destruction behind you. You, of course, would have been fine.

Just because nothing happened doesn’t mean it wasn’t a bad idea. To your credit, you seem to be aware of this.

Your second example is gold, though. Really, you were only taking your own life into your hands, and everyone has the right to do that, I guess. Plus, having elementary school aged nieces gives me an irrational, frothing at the mouth hatred of school zone speeders.

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So two guys were driving slower than the speed limit, and preventing other folks from getting around them? Yep - definitely jerk behavior.

Pulling up between them on a two-line highway, then taking your hands off the wheel while you were inches away from either? Man, you make those two guys look like pikers. They were inconveniencing a lot of people; you were endangering people. I’d say you behaved like the bigger jerk in this case.

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People don’t change, and trying to educate them (while driving down the road) is completely futile.

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How do I respond to a traffic jerk? Mostly by saying, “Honey, please slow the fuck down, you’re going to take us out of the gene pool.” Doesn’t do any good. The thing is, traffic jerks always think it’s the other guy being the jerk. If traffic jerk is tailgating, it’s because the jerk in front of him isn’t going fast enough. If he’s being tailgated, it’s because the jerk in back of him is going too fast. If he tries to make a tight lane change and fails, it’s because the jerk wouldn’t let him in, and if someone else makes a tight lane change, the jerk cut him off.

There’s absolutely no reasoning with these people, and often talk just riles 'em up more. I do my best to meditate and go zen until we get to our destination.

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Yes, I read it the first time. It wasn’t hard to comprehend. I am telling you no matter what your justification is, you are in the wrong. It is illegal and reckless for you to sandwhich your car between two lanes of traffic. And it is certainly reckless for you to take both hands off the wheel to give both drivers the finger as you go past them. It doesn’t matter how good of a driver you are if you aren’t touching the controls. All it takes is one car to hit a pothole or swerve to miss a chipmunk in the road and now you have an accident in which you would be at fault.

You sound like a psycho. It’s not your place to “teach drivers a lesson” by driving like a maniac. What it sounds like to me is that you are using other people’s bad driving as justification for getting a thrill out of harassing them or driving like a maniac yourself.

You aren’t a cop or Mad Max (who WAS actually a cop). Take down their license number and call the police like a normal person (over the age of 70) if you see someone driving dangerously.

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Who votes for made up story or “I wish I would have done this”?