That’s it! I’m buying a bloody dashcam!

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Today has been a banner day for morons behind the wheel (I don’t even class them as drivers, driving takes SKILL, something these cranial-deficient morons are solely lacking…

So far, FOUR events today;

Idiot 1; fourth generation Prius :vomit: at a four way intersection with a turn left and a turn right/straight lane, and traffic light, the moron was stopped at the red, squarely on the dividing line between the two lanes, no way of telling if the moron was going left, right, or straight ahead, light changes, he goes straight, and 10 miles under the limit (no surprise on the lack of speed, it’s a bloody Prius after all…), of course, I had to go straight as well, so I was stuck behind the hybrid slug until he turned off…
sadly, this was the mildest of the four encounters

Idiot 2; route 1 in the Kittery Maine outlet mall district, I’m in the right lane, a moron in a big Volvo station wagon pulls up beside me, and aggressively starts to turn into my lane, I swerve to avoid and lay on the Golf TDI’s surprisingly aggressive sounding horn, it actually has a bit of authority in its tone** , the driver looks over at me with a surprisingly bovine expression of utter cluelessness and incomprehension, returns to her lane, and I bury the throttle to put distance between me and her, thank Og for that endless Diesel Torque…

Idiot 3; this was in the parking lot of a kitchen supply store, I’ve gotten out of my car, and am hobbling to the store, as I’m recovering from a broken ankle, and clearly having mobility issues… when I see an idiot in a Ford F-150 heading straight for me (around 5 mph) with no sign of slowing, while he’s looking straight at me, yet another expression of utter bovine cluelessness, I yell at him “nice situational awareness, idiot!” As his wife, standing at the curb with a full cart of kitchenware starts berating him as well, I mean the guy was looking RIGHT AT ME!, admittedly a dashcam wouldn’t have helped here, but it’s just another clueless driver story…

And the last one;
Idiot 4; on the drive home, some moron in a Nissan 4wd truck was tailgating me all the way down the road leading to home, so close I couldn’t see his grille, and that’s saying a lot when you consider my car is a hatchback with huge rear window, no response to tapping the brake lights, light brake checking, or drifting into the gravel at the side of the road in hopes of kicking a rock at his tailgating ass, thankfully I relied on the amazing handling of my car to duck down a quick side road at the last minute…

So, what’d be a good reasonably priced dashcam with front and rear cameras, probably looking on that online store named after a river…

#2

**Definitely want to add a Hornblasters Diesel train horn to the car, not just because it’s a Diesel, it’s be Hilarious to hear a train horn from a small hatchback…

#3

Personally, I think you’re being overly-agressive here. These sound like fairly innocuous events that happen all the time.

#4

Neither the Volvo or Nissan truck incidents were my doing, but both had the potential to end up badly, I probably overreacted to the Nissan incident, but by that time I’d had enough of moronic drivers and I was pissed

The Volvo incident had the most potential to become an accident as the driver was truly inattentive and unaware of her car and it’s proximity to other cars, my car is a white hatchback, and easily visible to other drivers, unless the DMV has started licensing the blind…

The Braille method is not a good way to drive, and if you want to play bumper cars, go to a bloody amusement park.

The Prius incident was just funny, would have been funny with any vehicle, it’s just funnier with a Prius, due to their reputation as poor/incompetent drivers (Dopers who drive a Prius are the obvious exception here)

#5

You might also invest in some yoga and meditation courses.

#6

You and FairyChatMom need to go shopping.

And thanks for the shoulder gravel trick. I’ll have to give that one a try sometime. For now I just slow down and do the speed limit until I see a head asplode in the car behind me–which ain’t nothing, when you start tailgating me you’re already doing 20 over the limit most times.

#7

I’ve always wanted to try and invent a little device that mounts behind the wheel well that can be filled with gravel, and has a remote release on the dash, push the button and it drops a small load of gravel behind the rear bumper so it bounces off the road and discourages tailgating…

Don’t want gravel damage? Simple, DON’T TAILGATE!

#8

I’ve always been partial to the idea of having a James Bond-type device that would lay down a little oil slick on the road.

#9

Tailgating and lane incursion are not innocuous. They are dangerous, illegal driving behaviors.

Maybe your dashcam wouldn’t have helped you, but someone else’s might have. The more cameras there are, the more likely that an uninvolved third party will record any given incident.

#10

OK, let’s go straight to the mine-droppers.
(Old Car Wars fan, here.)

#11

^^maybe not as far as mines (hey I remember car wars) but I’ve often fantasized about having a bin of caltrops I could dump under the tires of tailgaters.
The ones I despise are the people who tailgate on a multi-lane road such as an interstate. They could go around quite easily but don’t. They just camp out on your rear bumper. THOSE are the people I slow down for.

I often wonder what they teach in driving school in different parts of the country. Tailgating isn’t something that was commonly seen in my part of the world until the last 10 yearsish.

My sympathies to Mactech, it’s sometimes amazing, frequently frightening, the levelnof hte stoopid you see on the road these days.

#12

I dunno, OP. To me, this just sounds like Wednesday. Shit like this happens all the time in traffic, and you need to find a way to let go of it after it’s done with. Lord knows I can’t stand tailgaters, for instance, but once they’re finally off my tail, I don’t continue to think about them, because on the whole, the world’s a pretty neat place, and I’m going to enjoy it more if I don’t let bozos live rent-free in my head.

Caltrops would definitely be a cool way of dealing with tailgaters.

#13

I think you guys just like saying “caltrop”. Caltrop caltrop caltrop :slight_smile:

#14

I don’t like the idea of caltrops, they can affect innocent drivers if the tailgaiter doesn’t get all of them.

I like the idea of a gravel shooter on your bumper.

#15

The gravel shooter, like caltrops (caaaalllltttrrrooooopppssss), has innocent bystander drawbacks, ricochets, shrapnel, near misses.

Sigh, no system is going to be perfect

#16

Anti-tank rifle mounted in one’s trunk?

#17

A small flashbang grenade in a compartment underneath your bumper will make noise, light and smoke. I’ll bet it will scare the beejaysus out of the tailgater too!

#18

Rear bumper mounted EMP generator? :wink:

…would not work on pre-computer days vehicles or older Diesels though…

#19

Or, if you really want to be mean, mime droppers. Silent but deadly.

#20

<sneer> You would say that, Canadian. </sneer> :wink: