If you are truly serious about this, it should be simple to rig some sort of spike that with the press of a button shoots 3 feet out the rear of your vehicle. How’s THAT for a clear “back off” message! I’m not sure what your local laws would say about vehicles modified with retractable weapons, but its worth looking in to.
if i could have anything in the world, it would be a bazooka mounted on the spoiler of my car, facing traffic behind me. (and one in front, just for good measure.)
What gets me is that if you speed up, they speed up with you. You can’t shake them off. If the guy is driving an expensive car then sometimes I will fuck with them a bit. My car is old and crappy, so I don’t really give a fuck if I hit him.
Where do these tailgaters work anyway? Are they all telemarketers or what? I can’t imagine any of my friendly coworkers being tailgaters.
I’d also like to commend samarm for being one of the most creative fabricators of derogatory insults I’ve ever seen.
“Sperm-stain” is my particular favorite!
Being tailgated (or followed closer than comfortable spacing) would tend to imply that the person behind you wishes to drive faster than you are travelling.
Perhaps pulling over to let them pass at the earliest opportunity is the best solution?
One time I was driving in a school zone, which was posted 25 mph (I was probably doing more like 30), and a woman in a Chevy Tracker came up behind me, talking on her cellphone and following so close that I couldn’t see the front of her truck in the mirror because my tailgate was blocking it. I had no intention of speeding up in a school zone, so finally she swerved over and passed me on a double yellow line. I was so ticked off, I think I leaned on the horn for about 30 seconds as she went by and continued on her merry way at ~40 mph. :rolleyes:
I don’t know about the OP, but I get tailgated a lot too. I’m sure most people get out of the way of Speedy Gonzales’ if possible. But 99% of the time, it’s either not possible to just “pull over” or wouldn’t do the tailgater any good, as in you are just one car, in a line of 50 or more, driving on a 2 lane road.
Such as what happened to me tonite, some stupid little rice rocket tailgated me all the way up a road (notorious for it’s slow going during rush hour) on the outskirts of town. There is no passing all the way up the road as it’s very hilly, and it’s only 2 lanes with the speed limit at 50. The car directly in front of me was being vereee pokeee, but there were several cars ahead of her as well. I wasn’t about to tailgate the pokey driver, as it wouldn’t have done any good, there’s NOWHERE TO GO!!!
Or, (as happened to me two nights ago) you are IN the slow lane already, flow-of-traffic is alREADy going 75 in a 55 and the moron is behind you tailgating instead of pulling around you into the fast lane and going on his merry and insane way.
If the person isn’t a skilled enough driver to merge into the fast lane, he doesn’t NEED to be going any faster.
I mean, what do these people want us to do? Drive up on top of the car ahead of us?
I’m with the OP, I wish I had some gadgets mounted to my car too!!!
Your car comes equipped with the only gadget you need to rid yourself of pesky tailgaters.
Your winshield wiper fluid pump.
Go on, press/swivel/thumb that little button/wheel/knob and get your windshield super spiffy clean. Use half a gallon or so if necessary. The blow off and drip off will go behind you and, in what I consider a fine example of sharing and recycling, will also be available for the tailgating driver to use to clean their windshield.
Inevitably they will have to hunt for their wipers, momentarily getting them off your bumper. Since a lot of hyper aggressive drivers are also super anal about their car, they’ll be dismayed at what is happening to their shiny wash job and will back off even further, or go around you.
Best of all, what are they going to do? Complain that you were washing your windshield to the cops? Please. You were just making sure you had a clear, unobstructed view of the road in order to be a safe driver and…what were they doing so close behind you anyway? Isn’t following too closely illegal, Officer Friendly? Maybe you’re talking to the wrong person.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get one of the gallon sized bottles of washer fluid out of my trunk and top off. I’ve got some driving to do today and want to make sure I have a glistening windshield to best see the sights.
I slow down when tailgated because if something ahead were to cause me to hit the brakes, I would not want to be rear-ended. If that puts the tailgaiter into a slow burn, too bad for him/her. I’m not going to put myself at risk for a tailgaiter’s anger management problem.