So I’m driving home down a two-lane state route road late the other night, cruising at around 57-58mph in a 55mph zone, when another car decides to turn out right in front of me from a passing cross street.
Now first of all, I was the only car on the road, so this driver very easily could have (and should have) simply let me pass before pulling out into the street. But not only did I have to slam on my brakes to avoid rear ending the fuck; once he (or she) got up to the full speed they were going to reach, it ended up being about 5 or 6 miles an hour below the speed limit. :smack:
Oookaaay, this is annoying but that is what passing is for. I patiently wait until we reach a “pass with care” zone in the road-way, and I signal that I am passing and I pull out and pass the guy. And boy did he not like that!! :eek: As soon as I pull out into the other side of the road, he starts blaring his horn nonstop and when I pull back in front of him (after signaling), he’s flashing his high-beams like mad right in my back window. WTF?! :mad:
Does this motherfucker not know what “passing” is? Does he not see those signs on the side of the road that say “Pass with care”?? Or does he just not like being passed 'cause he’s a fucking dickhead? Anyway, once I pass him, he suddenly finds it in himself to speed up and he’s basically tailgating me.
We drive this way for a while until I see that I am approaching another (slow-moving) car in the lane up ahead. I inch closer and closer and pretty soon I am right behind this other car. When I reach the appropriate passing zone, I pass this car as well. And the fucker who I initially passed flips out AGAIN!!
He had still remained right behind me up until I passed this new car. And as soon as I pulled out to pass the second car, the first guy once again starts blaring his horn and even flashing his high beams; even though this time he was actually flashing them at the guy I had passed and not me (I was in front of him at that point). WOW! Somebody sure got pissed.
That is nothing unusual. Things like that happen to me every time I drive.
I don’t think it’s a case of not knowing the rules, I think it’s a case of not caring combined with a type of aggression. After all, to a certain mentality, it’s just not cool to follow the rules - they think it’s a sign of weakness.
Then you either drive like a complete crazy person or you live in a very weird, hostile place. I may not be communicating the nature of this encounter very well but it WAS unusual; nothing quite like this has ever happened to me in all the years I’ve been driving.
You say he turned right in front of you and you had to slam your brakes. A few things:
He probably rationalized your need to do so by assuming you were speeding, or else you would have had plenty of time to stop.
If you had to slam on your brakes, I take that to mean that you also ended up getting very close to his rear bumper, at least initially. Using the same rationalization as the above, he probably thought that your “speeding” is what caused *you *to almost hit him.
I have had what happened to you happen to me countless times. I’m intimately aware of how tempting it is to apply the least amount of brakes possible and at least initially get as close to the person-who-cut-you-off’s rear bumper as possible, so as to fully demonstrate to them how heinously they just cut you off. You pretty much have to be an idiot to continue to tailgate someone like that, but at least at the initial moment, I think it’s pretty standard behavior that the person who got cutoff utilizes the minimum braking possible - not only to fully convey the heinous extent of the cutoff, but also to make it so that you can decelerate more smoothly and not have stuff in the car go flying, etc. It’s very rare that you *actually *had to SLAM on your brakes so hard that you literally couldn’t slow down any sooner and faster - your frustration just makes it feel that way.
After all of the above, you might not have exactly tailgated (because then his reaction wouldn’t be confusing), but you might have matched his acceleration from a “minimally safe distance.” What I mean by this is that he may very well have realized you were rapidly approaching him from behind, and actually tried to accelerate as much as he could before you got right up on him. Then, once you were at your closest to him, and you were both going the same speed, he might still have been trying to accelerate as quickly as he reasonably could in order to get a more comfortable distance between the two of you. This is where, even though you might not have necessarily tailgated him, you might have been matching his best effort at acceleration in order to *constantly *maintain that “minimally safe distance” so as to *continue *to convey your displeasure at not only being cutoff, but now also being forced to drive under the speed limit.
Without having been there, I can *still *almost guaran-fuckin-tee that the above is a mostly accurate depiction of the events. (I’m a self-declared expert in driver-psychology.)
This still bothers you enough several days later that you write hundreds of unsolicited words on it? Maybe that guy got a little hot in the moment, but I’d say you’re probably worse than he is. Road rage kills. Get some help.
I don’t know what bugs me more, the people who speed up when I pass them or the clowns who pass me, pull in front of me (usually too close) and then slow down. Since nearly all my highway driving is on cruise control, I know I am not making this up.
Another thing that bugs although I know the other driver is not doing it just to bug me is the heavy tractor-trailer that goes above the speed limit and passes me on the downhills and then slows down and I pass him on the uphill. I understand why he does it, but still it bugs me.
I would assume the guy in the OP (the honking driver) was drunk. He pulled out in front, because he didn’t bother to look, or didn’t see Ambivalid coming. Then proceeded to behave like an idiot, because OMG you almost hit him!
I was on the highway after midnight the other night, going about 3-5 over the speed limit (55), and a van pulled up right behind me with it’s brights on and sat there for a mile or two. The left lane was completely clear the entire time, he could have passed me without even having to slow down. Instead he waited for a spot in the right lane to open (I was in the middle lane, with slower cars to the right), passed me on the right, moved in front of me, then into the left lane, and sped of ahead. I saw it was one of those van based cube back mini-bus things. To think his overly aggressive driving might be putting other people at risk. Unfortunately it didn’t have any logos or numbers of who his employer might be.
I once rear ended a guy who pulled out right in front of me. We both pulled over and he said “I pulled out in front of you because you were going too fast”. No damage to either old rust bucket, so I told him he was an asshole and left.
Some people are just super special, in more ways than one.
Ha! I don’t know how this guy could have thought I was going too fast. I had my car in cruise control set at two miles an hr above the posted speed limit in the dead of night with absolutely no other traffic.
Yup. Probably taught to drive by his parents, who taught him all of their bad habits.
I got to talk to the person who was driving like an idiot and ended up hitting people once, too - his defence was, “I wasn’t driving faster than the speed limit.” Yeah, but what about that hill we were driving down - you know, the one that was completely iced up? Didn’t matter - all he knew was he didn’t break the speed limit, so he didn’t know how this happened!
So, Ambivalid, he didn’t pull the usual stunt of cutting you off when you were the only car on the road and then blocking your way by making a turn right away? That’s my favourite stunt other drivers pull.
Ha! Those people are nothing. My favorite are the people who are already driving behind you in the same direction, with nobody else directly behind you, but for some reason they feel that it’s vital that they pass you right before they slam on their brakes to make a turn.
Those kind of people should be automatic justification for a stand-your-ground defense.
Or the people that pull out in front of you just so they can turn 1/2 mile later. “Yeah I’m cutting you off but I only need to go right down the road and I’ll be out of the way.”
I don’t know how this guy could have thought I was going too fast. I had my car in cruise control set at two miles an hr above the posted speed limit in the dead of night with absolutely no other traffic.