The stupid douchebag was in the wrong for opening her door without checking. The way you handle it is what defines your maturity as a driver. I live in the city with the highest rate of red light running in the US. I drive with the assumption that some felchwit isn’t going to stop when I have a green light. I’ve seen the consequences when last year I was perhaps less than a second from being T-boned by a drunk driver doing more than 50 in a residential area. The people immediately in front of me got it. Stay sharp and keep looking out for people who are seemingly out to kill you because this won’t be the last one by a long shot.
I’ll go with that. I’ll withdraw lacks noun, and instead nominate cuntdripping as the most inventive subject of 2005.
Old joke, best delivered orally with appropriate intonation:
A class-sensitive yuppie abrupty opens his car door and a passing car smashes it off. When the cops arrive, the yuppie is snivelling and whining: “Officer, look what they did to my Beemer!”
The cop looks at the yuppie in disgust. “You moron, he took your left arm off, too!”
The yuppie pauses, then wails “My Rolex!!”
You’d think that wouldn’t you? The UK government however attempted to pass as law a couple of years ago (I think and hope that its been quietly dropped since) that in a collision between a car and a bike its automatically the drivers fault!
But then the Labour government is viciously anti-car in general.
A couple of years ago I was driving along a narrow country lane at about 40mph, I saw a bike ahead so I slowed down and moved over to pass when without any warning whatsoever and without looking over his shoulder the cyclist suddenly swung 180 degrees across the road in front of me missing my car by inches. Cue lots of fist-shaking and profanity from the aggrieved cyclist…
According to the new government rules if I’d hit him (more like he hit me) it would have been my fault?!? Fuck off.
I’m both a motorist and cyclist before someone gets bent out of shape, I remember the cars VS bikes thread in here… 
As for the OP you’ll simply have to get used to that sort of stuff, and worse, if you want to learn how to drive (and personally I few driving as one of the most fun things you can do). Luckily if you’re in America you don’t have to put up with the useless fuckwits that don’t seem to know how to use roundabouts properly…that is to say most people.
If you apologize one more time for having a terrifying experience and then not calmly previewing your rant for minor grammatical referential errors…
Maybe we can turn this thread in a little more positive direction and talk about some defensive driving skills in general. Here are some of my favorites:
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Don’t drive in someone’s blind spot for an extended period of time. Accelerate or decelerate to get out of it, but don’t stay there.
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If you are lane changing, and there’s another car two lanes over, assume he is going to change into the same lane you are, whether or not he’s signalling. Make the lane change carefully and keep your eyes on him like a hawk for the first sign that he might be coming over.
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Be very careful when you see a car that looks like it’s double-parked. It may in fact be stopped for a pedestrian who is jaywalking. I’d guess that the majority of pedestrian accidents happen when a pedestrian walks out from behind a stopped car or truck and into the path of someone who doesn’t realize they should be stopping.
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If you are in a merge lane and there is someone in front of you be prepared to stop. There are far too many idiots on the road who panic when trying to merge onto the freeway and wind up coming to a dead stop because they can’t figure out how to fit into the flow of traffic. I almost got into an accident a while ago because of this. The car in front of me had plenty of room to merge, but there was a block of tightly clustered cars timed to be at the merge point when I got there, so I was spending more effort looking over my shoulder at the freeway deciding whether I should speed up or slow down to avoid that block. When I looked ahead again, the car in front of me had come to a dead stop. I had to do a full panic brake to stop in time. If I didn’t have ABS that might have been an accident.
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On the highway, when coming around a blind curve on a 2-lane road, try to slide over a bit to the outside of your lane (assuming a good shoulder), just in case the guy coming around the curve the other way has drifted over the line, or someone is trying to pass blindly. This actually happened to us just a couple of weeks ago in BC. Coming around a blind mountain curve, we found ourselves staring at a pickup truck in our lane, coming straight at us. The idiot was attempting a pass on a blind corner in the mountains. Luckily, the driver being passed had his wits about him, and pulled over on his side. I moved to the outside, and between us the guy had enough room to get back into his own lane. Moron.
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Come to think of it - if someone is passing you in an unsafe manner, just get the hell out of his way. Move onto the shoulder if it’s safe, or slow down to limit the time he’ll be in that lane. Save his ass for him, because if he gets creamed right beside you, you might get smacked as well.
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When driving in lanes next to parallel parked cars, look inside the cars for people, and if you see them be prepared for the inevitable door being thrown open in front of you. Happens all the time.
{Emphasis mine}
All of Sam’s post was extremely good advice, but I wanted to highlight this point. You have every right to drive in someone’s blind spot, but just don’t. Look at other driver’s eyes all the time - if they’re not looking at you, assume they haven’t seen you.
This sounds obvious, but it can save you a lot of trouble - always look in the direction you’re going. If you have to look behind you to merge onto a road, turn your attention back to the way you’re heading before you start moving - it will save you running over a pedestrian or a car that has appeared out of nowhere in front of you.
Look at where you’re going before you start going there - especially making left turns. If there’s a pedestrian in the crosswalk, stay back out of traffic until they have passed. It is the height of gauche in driving to make other traffic wait for you (and extremely dangerous, as well).
Follow at a safe distance. I know everyone and their dog like to tailgate, but if there is one thing you can do to make driving safer for yourself, I would say this is it. When someone is tailgating you, make sure you have plenty of room in front of you so you can still stop without hitting the guy in front of you when the guy behind you hits you.
This might sound a little overwhelming for a new driver, but so much of driving becomes habit. That’s why it’s so important to make all your habits good habits - they’ll take care of you in a pinch.
This is probably the single best bit of advice you will get, make sure that any habits you develop are good habits. For example in my rant about roundabouts above my main complaint is that virtually nobody uses indicators to let other drivers know where they intend to go. I asked a friend about it when he once went around a roundabout not using indicators and his response was that it was, “Too much hassle”.
Personally I’ve got into such a habit of using them that its an automatic reflex action and not something I have to engage your brain for at all and so can’t see why its a “hassle” to use them.
You do have to put up with friends mocking you when you reflexively use them even when there are no other cars in sight though…
In California, we have metering lights on some freeway onramps that operate during rush hour. One or two cars may enter the freeway for each green, depending on the signage. Thursday as I was coming down the onramp, I saw that the light was green and that there was a car just past the light. Fine – the green was for that car, he had used it, and I prepared to stop. But as I came around the curve, I found out that the car was backing up! This required me to decelerate somewhat more forcefully than I’d planned. I can only imagine that the driver had started to accelerate and then thought “Wait a minute! Was that light really green? I’d better back up and check!”
Following distance, Following Disance, Following Distance. if I had just one single piece of advice that would stick I think I would pick this one.
we had a 16 car pile up recently on i5, 14 of those cars were following so close that when the #1 and #2 cars collided all they could do was join the party.
keep a Few seconds back everywhere you go, 2+ city, 3+ hwy and 4+ freeway are generally what we teach. I personally prefer 3+ city, in Seattle there is simply to much pedestrian/Bike traffic to be comfortable close to another car. here is a simple game we can play on the freeway, its called “count the rear end collisions we see in a week” game. its easy. everytime you see 2 cars pulled over exchanging inssurance info you get one point, once you acctually get The Point stop playing the game, you win.
for those who say “if I hang back more than a car legnth some one will cut me off” all I have to ask is “yeah and?”
seriously give this a try. time your comute to work for a week with you driving like your usual over agressive tailgating lane changing cutting people off self. then for a week (no really just one day at a time) try driving like a reasonable defensive driver, hang back a few seconds, let people lane change like on Purpose . try some relaxing music and quit stressing, make an effort to stay calm and be helpful to those around you instead of a hinderence. oh yeah, time your drives that week as well…and when you find out its the same drive time either way you can come back and explain why you want to spend all that time pissed off and stressed out.
some other pointers that are a bit unusual but goodies are
if you are about to miss your turn/exit Do Not Fucking Stop/Rocket across 7 lanes of traffic/act like a dumbass who doesnt realise that every road on the entire continent is conected to every other road on the continent. instead try driving past your turn/exit and take the next one after making the appropriate lane changes, turn around and make your way back. sure it might take you a few minutes but its your few minutes instead of somone elses life/vehicle/traffic jam that you might be causing by driving like an idiot.
speed the fuck up to freeway speed On the Og Damned ONRAMP instead of the final 6’ before you are forced to merge into the side of somones car or stop in order to avoid the collision. no really that half mile of onramp isnt there so you can stroll along at 35 til the very very end and then try to merge with 65 mph traffic…and the 12 cars behind you will thank you as well.
have a crash/flat/problem that leaves your car still able to move? (even if it doesnt really want to) then get the hell off the ROAD this is to the lady trying to change a flat…in the carpool lane…at 3pm…on 405…on a wednesday afternoon. if you get out of traffic then traffic is able to keep moving and a hell of alot less likely to run your dumbass over.
running out of steam, sorry for the typos (I just assume there are a dozen or so)
Would have been a lot worse if had been riding a bike. 
Or, pick out a car that is racing along, changing lanes back and forth, and notice his position at the red light. Watch at the next red light - chances are very good he will not be significantly further ahead in spite of all his dangerous law-breaking. If he makes it through a light that you don’t, chances are also very good he’ll be right back with you at the next one.
Try timing the lights that you have to sit and wait for - the longest I wait at is 90 seconds. Doesn’t sound like a whole lot to get that worked up about, does it?
And finally, some of the best advice I’ve heard in a long time - when you’re late and getting steamed up about everything, think about it this way - you can be late and mad and stressed out, or you can just be late. It’s your choice.
All good advice, but don’t forget this one…keep a cool head. Some idiot cuts you off, say an expletive, honk if you like, and then move on, etc. It isn’t worth the trouble to get all riled up.
I’m fairly laid back when driving but there is one thing thats guarented to drive me nuts. I live in a rural area so most of my journeys are on windy, narrow B-roads with a speed-limit of 60 mph interspersed with built-up areas where the speed limit is 30 mph.
Unlike 99% of the people driving I tend to obey the speed limit so I do 60 mph on the B-roads and 30 mph in built up areas. Its almost a dead cert however that while doing 30 mph through a village some tosser will come speeding up behind you and overtake before you reach the end of the 30 limit and its also likely that said fuckwit will now sit at 40 mph on the main road and it will be almost impossible to get past them…aaaaaagggggghhhhh!!!
People who insist on driving at 40 mph whatever the circumstances should be taken out and shot at the side of the road and their bodies left to rot as a warning to others.
I’ve been driving for 15 years and any mother fucker who opens their door without checking for trafic deserves a fucking pitting. So DSotF is new driver but the instructor slammed on the breaks. Therefore this was an emergency break situation therefore the lady coming out of the car was a brainless turd that was a road kill hedgehog in her previous life. Not only that, she was double parked so was more trash than someone who is thrown out of wallmart for being too stupid to shop- there. Finally she shouted and swore at the driver who had just saved her misserable life by avoiding an accident of her own making. Such a scum bucket deserves to be shat uppon by incontinent crack whores whilst licking the pavement clean on a busy interstate.
The idiot in the OP would be 100% legally in the wrong here. I expect that most or all US states will be the same. Don’t expect anyone to pay any more attention to this law than they do to speed limits or stop signs, however. The safest thing is to follow the advice given numerous times in this thread and assume any other driver/pedestrian is a total moron with a death wish.
Preach it!
You should have made cookies.
I did.
Just not for you bastards.
Daniel
Drop a letter.