What did you hope to accomplish, moron in the gold Jaguar?

The BBQ Pit
1

Saturday afternoon, Leigh-Anne and I were on our way to the Dopefest at Jeff Olsen’s place. Northern Virginians may be familiar with the area I’m about to describe; others will understand the spirit.

I’m driving down Huntington Ave. to get on Telegraph Rd. and then on the Beltway. The posted limit on Huntington is, I believe, 40. It may be 45. In either case, I’m going between 50-55, and there’s a gold Jag tailgating me all the way down. I guess 10-15 over the speed limit just isn’t fast enough for him in a mixed business/residential zone.

I get down to the intersection at Telegraph. Traffic turning left has a light, but traffic turning right just has a yield and a merge. The traffic in the lane on Telegraph nearest me enters 495 N/E just past my merge, so I have to ake sure theere’s not oncoming traffic. When I do get to turn, my lane quickly merges one lane left, then I can enter 495 S/W to my right.

There’s a car in the lane nearest me, so I get up to the yield sign and stop. The Jag, who was tailgating, has to stop short. He honks at me, and flips me off. I ignore him. I guess maybe he wanted me to drive right into the oncoming car.

The car in that lane passes, so I pull out, and the Jag pulls out and around me to my left, zipping by me and flipping me off again. So, in honor of the protocol here, I casually return the vertical salute.

Now, he tries to suddenly cut in front of me and hit his brakes. To what avail, I don’t know. I guess he wanted me to rear-end him. Unfortunately, I’m already entering the Beltway to my right – so he tries to cut me off on the entrance ramp, cutting across the zebra-striped area.

What would this have accomplished? As it was, he had to slam to a halt because other cars were getting on behind me. This guy tries to cause a deliberate rear-end collision, then tries to sideswipe me on the ramp. All because I yielded to oncoming traffic. This is worth risking a life-threatening accident over?

Take your small-penis-compensation tactics to somebody else’s road, pal. I know you believe that buying an expensive car imbues you with greater ownership of the road, but it just ain’t say. Next time you get the urge to endanger someone in traffic, do me a favor and drive yourself into a wall or off of an overpass. :wally

2

The thing I never understand about these idiots, driving like maniacs in expensive cars, is this: Aren’t they MORE worried about taking care of the vehicles since they paid so much for them and are obviously attached to them in some way? If you’re too big a jerk to be concerned about physically harming someone, how come you aren’t at LEAST careful about your belongings?

I drive a Jaguar. I LOVE my car! It’s my baby. It’s fun to drive, really speedy, and I’m really proud of it. I certainly don’t think everyone should be as materialistic and silly about this as I am. But my point is that I am obsessively CAREFUL with my baby. I don’t dare people to rear end me. I don’t drive like an idiot for fear of attracting the attention of the police. I don’t risk injury to my OWN person or that of anyone else, and also strictly protect the skin on my CAR.

Because of the infamous cost of Jaguar repairs, this asshole gets into a little fender bender and his car could easily end up TOTALLED. Let’s all hope that happens, shall we?

-L
(Who doesn’t have a penis compensation problem, by the way. :))

3

Phil - the guy was undoubtedly a total fucker. I loathe and detest those who act in such a manner.

In an ironic twist however, I am, in typical pld style, going to pick you up on a few things:

So why not slow down to 5mph or more below the speed limit? I believe that would be de rigueur for dealing with tailgaters. There are two good reasons for this:[list=1][li]Decrease the stopping distance of the car behind you to the point where the gap being left is appropriate[/li][li]Should an accident occur, you would be found partially at fault if you were breaking the speed limit.[/list=1][/li][quote]
The car in that lane passes, so I pull out, and the Jag pulls out and around me to my left, zipping by me and flipping me off again. So, in honor of the protocol here, I casually return the vertical salute.
[/quote]
So basically you acted to inflame the situation. Do you think that was wise? Of course I 100% blame the fucker, not you, for the subsequent course of events. Nevertheless, acting to provoke a clearly angry man is never a particularly laudatory action.

Glad you’re still here to tell the tale,

pan

4

Maybe slowing down to be within the speed limit would lessen your liability in case of an accident, but with tailgating wretches this would more than likely increase the odds of a crash, since these bozos are prone to hang even more closely on your bumper if you slow down.

This is difficult to apply in practice, but responding to the middle finger salute with an exuberant, friendly wave can be satisfying. This lets the other driver know you consider him an ass, but don’t think enough of him to be drawn into an obscene gesture exchange.

5

Phil -

I’m not saying the guy in the jag wasn’t a total jerk but…
Huntington is a two or four lane road? You weren’t perhaps in the left hand lane at the time were you?

6

Quicksilver, Huntington is 4 lanes (2 per direction) and I was in the curb lane, because I needed to make a right turn at the intersection.

Telegraph, actually, is three lanes in the direction I was turning in. The curb lane disappears shortly after the merge I was at, to enter the Beltway in one direction. So I had to turn right, into that lane, then merge left. The doofus in the Jag turned behind me and went straight into the far left lane, then cut back in to the right, in front of me.

kabbes, you’re right to an extent, but traveling down Huntington at 50-55 is pretty much just keeping up with the prevailing flow of traffic. Even Metro buses travel that speed. And Jackmannii addressed the other concern–especially in Northern Va., he’s right. Slowing down causes the other driver to physically adhere his bumper to yours, or to sometimes just get in your backseat.

Quite honestly, I wish that when he had cut into the ramp, he had been hit by another vehicle coming up the ramp. That would have been satisfying.

7

Acknowledged. I am no fan of the tailgater and know just how annoying they can be.

Personally, I have a tendency to slow down to about 10mph if I have a particularly egregious offender behind me. That doesn’t sit well with my earlier “don’t inflame the situation” advice though!

pan

8

The guy was a dickhead.

Just goes to show - there may be laws but rarely is there justice.

Glad you made it safely to the DC St. Pat’s dopefest. It was a pleasure meeting you and your wife.

9

…oh, and I’m sure you didn’t mean to wish some other innocent driver was tangled up with this jerk-off.

10

I don’t know why, but for some reason my neighborhood has a high concentration of tailgaters.

Of course I wish them dead, but lacking that, slowing down is probably the best course of action. I know the OP has already dismissed that as likely to cause a rear-ending, but if you slow down slowly, that probably won’t happen. Put on your hazard lights as an extra measure and they’ll usually get pissed off enough to pull out and pass you.

11

Fiver, I don’t know what part of Atlanta you live in, but in my area(Sandy Springs), there is a huge concentration of them. I admit to being occasionally guilty of tailgating. It’s a habit I’ve been working hard to change after a couple of close calls, and I’m doing better. I’ve broken my road rage habit, and no longer pull tricks like the guy in the gold Jaguar was pulling. I suppose I’m mellowing with age, but it’s been nice to learn to be on the road without being angry.

12

Look, everyone carries paintball guns, okay? A moron like this cuts you off and acts like a dipwad, you zap him. A cop sees a gold jag with two hundred paintball hits, he pulls him over and pulls his ticket. End of question. We could make Chicago expressways asshole free in ten weeks. Atlanta, maybe 8 weeks Might take longer for L.A.

Nueva York, you’re probably on your own.

Billy

13

Billy, LA’s been doing that for YEARS! Except they don’t use no candy-ass paint-balls. With real guns, you cut out those unnecessary middlemen, the LAPD.

14

Nimune, excellent point, except guns aren’t mandatory.Now if you made packing heat mandatory, well, LA could be a FINE place to drive!!!
Tongue thoroughly in cheek

Billy

15

Oh sure, take his side. I was minding my own business, in a hurry, and the sonovabitch is driving like an old man, slowing down at each and every turn and driveway, oohing and ahhing at every tree, and cow.

I every time I tried to pass, he’d speed up.

I better never see you down here again Phil, or you’ll be eating my gold imported bumper!

16

I HATE tailgaters. With an undying passion. If I believed in god, I would hope there is a special place in hell where these fuckers burn.

Every morning I drive 25 miles to school (UMBC) on 95 South, where 90% of the drivers are apparently too enthralled by their reflection in the review to conquer forward motion. I always, always end up with a tailgater on my ass. If I’m going 75 mph (speed limit is 55), then I am not speeding up to please you. Pass me or bite me, jerkoff. If I am going anywhere between 55-70, rest assured that it is not my fault. See the cars in front of me? I can only go as fast as they are going. In bumper to bumper morning gridlock, riding my tail is achieving absolutely nothing. One of the four hundred cars cruising at 55mph in front of me is at fault, and I can only follow.

I really question the fact that people who are stupid enough to tailgate should be on the road. You look away for one second, to light a cigarette or change the station, I have to stop, and we are both fucked. Do you really think you will get there faster if you are one carlength from my bumper instead of two? Do you really think that aggressively stalking my bumper will have any effect on all the cars in front of me who are causing me to go slow? If it means that much to you, just pass me! Argh! :mad:

My morning commute involves getting on 695, getting across four lanes in bumper to bumper traffic, yielding into 95 South and getting across four lanes (which, as anyone who has driven on 95 S will tell you, is hard as hell), then, after getting through the tunnel (another ordeal I cannot even begin to type of without completely losing control), getting back on 695 and yielding over two lanes. I manage to do all of this without tailgating anyone, and I still get to school with time to spare. It must be a fucking miracle.

17

The guy in the Jag is the sort of person who arrives late to a party and says, “I would have been here 15 seconds earlier but the car in front of me had a bike rack.”

::bah dum bum::

18

When someone tailgates me, I slow down to the speed limit (usually about 15 mph lower than the flow of traffic in Texas). If they won’t pass me, I then either slam on my brakes, or if I want to be hit (company vehicle or very expensive car) drop it down a couple of gears and use the engine to brake. Unfortunately, I haven’t been hit yet, but I’ve caused a couple of people to have to swerve onto the shoulder to avoid hitting me.

19

Lsura:

I live in East Atlanta Village, and I notice the tailgating most on I-20 Eastbound on my way home from work, and in the Village itself.

Previously I lived on Ponce and in Virginia-Highlands, and I never noticed much tailgating there. Maybe it’s a highway thing.

20

People who get pulled over for doing this crap should have to ride along with the coroner to fatal traffic accidents.

My car was in the shop last summer, so I had my husband’s car and I picked him up at work one evening. On our way home, a guy in a pickup who was a couple cars in front of us was tailgating, flashing his lights, and generally being an asshole. He decided he was going to pass the guy in front of him - on a two-lane road, 55 mph speed limit, almost bumper-to-bumper traffic. He swerved into the oncoming lane, realized there was someone coming toward him, swerved back into his lane, clipped the bumper of the guy in front, then over-corrected. He ended up flying up into the air, flipping end-over-end, and coming down upside-down on top of the car behind him. There happened to be an EMS in the car behind that, who jumped out and got there first and went to the car that was landed on. My husband, who’s CPR/First Aid trained because of his job, was there second and went to the jerk in the pickup truck. They both had serious head injuries and the man in the truck died as my husband held his hand and I called 911.

I know that’s very dramatic, but it certainly slowed both of us waaaaaaaay down. You tend to remember the power of the car you’re sitting in when you still have a pair of pants stained with someone else’s blood. Forget giving tickets - people who are driving Jaguars probably couldn’t give a shit. They need to see what kind of damage they can cause to themselves and other people.