What makes this even worse is the current trend of window tinting. One way I drive is to look at the other drivers–I can normally see if they’re looking in my direction (and therefore more likely to see me) if they’re about to pull out of an intersection in which I have the right of way. Or if I’m behind them, I look at the back of their heads, and I can usually tell when they’re planning on a lane change. In other words, I use the subtle (head, not body) language other drivers exhibit in order to stay safe and get where I’m going in one piece.
With windows tinted black all around (even the front windshield is 20% black), it’s impossible to tell where other people are looking, and therefore difficult to impossible to judge what they’re going to do.
I remember the last time this trend came around – the police didn’t like it because they found it more difficult to see occupants when they walked up to the cars, and therefore took a bigger risk of facing a gun or other unexpected action.
That’s a nice concept, but around here there are many roads where you can’t pull over to let someone pass for long stretches. Why do I care? I care because the jerk might rear-end me if I have to stop suddenly, I care because if I speed up to please him I’m going to get a ticket as well as he is, I care because it’s stupid, dangerous driving to go significantly faster than the speed limit and/or to attempt to bully other drivers.
If it’s safe AND feasible I’ll let the jerks pass. Problem is, that’s not always possible.
Fair enough, and I certainly agree that tailgating is a dangerous, asshole move, regardless of the reasoning behind it. I was thinking of the times I’ve been riding with a driver who could either move into a different lane or pull onto the shoulder for a moment but chooses to work themselves into a rage over the tailgater instead.
We have a horrible intersection around here. There’s two lanes, but then traffic coming off the freeway adds a third lane to the far right where those people have the right of way. The problem is there’s a shopping center on the right side, the right lane terminates a couple blocks down and there’s nowhere to turn around for many blocks, so it turns into a lane-changing war. It’s terrifying and I hate that intersection, unfortunately, I always need to get into that far right lane.
But yeah, one time I needed to follow a coworker to another part of the city I didn’t know, and he told me he merges in at the last possible second. This did not make following him very easy on the higher speed streets.
You have a good point here (I think being online has a similar effect on people.)
My personal theory* is that once we’re in cars, we’ve entered the Mesozoic Era.
In my little car with my lack of skills and slow reaction time, I’m something like a stegosaurus. I’m not cutting anyone off, but watch out for I am slow and fearful of merging and thus may inadvertently get in the way of a raptor. Expensive BMW’s and people speeding while on their cell phones = Raptors! There tend to be several of them on the road at a time, and you won’t even see them sideswiping you before you’re out of the count.
Luckily, one can usually make use of a lumbering **Apatosaurus **(i.e. semi’s) to make a get away to the off ramp.
And Minivans and Huge Sport Utility Vehicles? T-Rex right there baby, and they will fuck you up if they can.
*Note: When I explained this theory to a friend while driving (with sound effects for the various dinosaurs) she became concerned for my mental state after she finished laughing…
This stuff is exactly why I think we’ll have cameras recording to digital media with a wifi connection in our vehicles. Plus a button that sends a copy of the last N number of seconds with a digitally signed complaint right to the police.
I should keep a tally; it seems like I get tailgated through school and playground zones by mom-mobiles every time I’m in one. It doesn’t make any good sense, but I think higher logic functions escape a lot of people (“I have kids; I want my kids to be safe; driving slowly through school zones keeps my kids safe, and also keeps other people’s kids safe, so it’s something I should do.”) Instead somehow that gets warped into, “Why is this Corolla in front of me driving so SLOWLY?!? HURRY UP, ASSHOLE!”
I agree with this, but I also think it goes both ways, as someone else mentioned, much like how a lot of interaction can get out of control on the internet. As hard as it is to see other people’s expressions, we also have the impression that no one sees us, which makes it a lot easier to be an asshole than if you actually had to stand next to that person. My proof: Haven’t you ever seen someone in their car picking their nose or doing something equally…umm… “private”, despite being surrounded by windows? How often have you seen people do the same thing standing in line at the grocery store?
I see this sort of behavior often, given the traffic in this area and I generally don’t reciprocate unless I’m in a bad mood. Instead, if I’m in a particular mood, I use it to amuse myself instead. For instance, one time I passed someone who was going below the speed limit late at night, which they apparently didn’t like, so they tried to pass me. I sped up enough to make it look like I was going to stop them to the point where they just floored it going well over the speed limit and I just let them go. Surprise, surprise, a cop snagged them about a mile or two up the road, and I had a hearty laugh. Yeah, probably not the safest thing, but at 2 AM on an open road… meh.
I try not to “teach lessons” because a lot of DC drivers have hair-trigger tempers and carry weapons in the car. That being said, I absolutely love trying to cut off people who pull out into a merge lane, leapfrog 6 cars, and then cut back in. Congrats, you just saved maybe 8 seconds! If someone is actually entering the highway and needs to merge, I will happily make space for them, but if you were behind me a second ago and decided you’re so fucking important that you should be able to just jump around all of us, then hell yeah I’m going to try to cut you off when you try to merge back in, and I’m going to take pleasure in doing it. It’s immensely satisfying when some line-cutting douche winds up stranded in the breakdown lane because he tried to move up 4 cars and got busted and nobody will let him back in.
I have noticed that the faster a person drives, the more likely they will be to swing into the far lane on a turn instead of going into the correct one and then doing a proper lane change.
I still don’t understand this attitude of American drivers. If someone needs to merge into your lane, and communicates this fact to you (that’s what the turn signal is for), why won’t you slow down or stop and let them in?
Of course there are some people everywhere who do this, but in the US this seems to be accepted as normal behavior. It’s almost as if Americans have an agreement to regard driving as a competitive sport.
I almost always* let in someone who does signal they want to come over. That doesn’t mean I let a lot of people in, however; so few of them signal. Why? Well, I’ve been a passenger in cars whose drivers cut over suddenly without signaling, and when I ask them why, they universally defend the failure to signal by saying “it only gives the other driver advance notice to move up and freeze me out.” they prefer surprise as a deliberate tactic.
*The exception: People I will try to freeze out even when they signal – and I’ve met more of these over the years than you might expect – are people who overtake me on the left when I’m the last car in a long line in the right lane and put their signal on and prepare to move over. They’re not going to the front of the long line to save themselves time; nor are they falling into line behind me even though they START OUT behind me AND want to be in my lane AND there’s no one in their way. Noooo, they’re going to the trouble of cutting off one person, even though it leaves them almost at the end of the line anyway. I do not understand why they feel compelled to do this, but I meet 3-4 of these every year or so. It’s like they have the urge to piss someone off even though it doesn’t make their trip shorter, but they don’t want to piss off too many people, so they just pick one.
It’s not like the last car in the line gets some penalty that the second-to-last is spared, for crying out loud.
Signaling’s worthless. The point of signaling is to tell other drivers your intention to do something before you do it. I see many, many drivers begin to change lanes on the interstate, then halfway through the lane change, blink their turn indicator once.
The other day, I saw a driver complete the lane change, then put on his/her turn indicator.
If I signal, which I often don’t to be honest, I let it click a few times before I initiate the lane change. If I’m making a turn on a surface street, I try to turn on the indicator before I apply the brakes. This way, I’m actually indicating what I’m going to do before I do it. It does no one any good to indicate as you’re turning, because I can already see you’re turning.
