I'm mystified about why people tailgate, and even more mystified about why people GET tailgated.

I'm a fast, and savvy driver. If I need to get around you, and you're dawdling along at only 130% of the speed limit, I'll usually just overtake you or if I'm in a hurry, I'll flash/honk - with 'respectful' intervals (varying on age of driver and vehicle) between reminders - until you are behind me. But one way or the other, you better believe I'm going to be in front of you in the next minute or so, regardless. I don't let slackers stand in my way for too long. Tailgaiting does nothing to get you past the lemon that's in your way - it's unsafe, and moreover, it only serves to ensure the driver of the said lemon doesn't pull over earlier.

By the same token, I don't understand why slackers drive so slowly that they GET tailgated. Driving in my car, I want to get from A to B in the shortest time. Unless a particularly beautiful song is being played, or an equally beautiful woman is strolling gracefully on the pavement etc, I'll drive at the max the prevailing conditions, such as road curvature and traffic flow, allow. Time in my car is time that could be spent on better things. I generally don't do pleasure cruises, although I own a convertible. If on very rare occasion I'm being flashed, it's only ever because it's someone who knows me and saying 'hi'. In the extremely unlikely event I were to be tailgated, I'd let the driver pass at the earliest opportunity.


Jaybee.

Well I must say that I am a very patient person, in driving especially. If I'm in a bad mood, someone may get a 'bastard' under my breath, but that's usually about it. If I'm the passenger, I'll usually flip someone off.

In response to Jaybee though, about people being tailgated: You make it sound like it the person being tailgated's fault. I do enjoy driving, but most of all, I will only do about 5MPH over the speed limit because *news flash* I don't want to get pulled over. Most people tend to speed more than that, but that is not my fault. I prefer to be safe and not die. The speed limit is there for a reason. So when I do get tail-gated, which isn't too often, I don't think that it's my fault... any other opinions?

My grandfather used to wave for them to "just drive over the top." At least, that's what he TOLD us that gesture meant ;).

Usually, I just figure they're better off somewhere I'm not. Sometimes I swear, but I usually remember that I too make mistakes when lost and confused in a strange town (my usual assumption for why they can't seem to read street signs).

Just once, though, I really lost my temper. I had a jackass tailgaiting me at 2am on the freeway for an hour. He wouldn't fucking pass, with his damned brights on in my side mirror, near blinding me.

FINALLY we got out from among the late night truckers, and he went FLYING past me. At the next truck pack, we wound up stack up again...only with me in back. I was pissed as hell and bored out of my mind (I think I'd been on the road for 8 hours at that point)...so I tail gated him for a while. Well, at least 20 minutes. Big difference, though. I drove an SUV, and their lights go right the back window of normal cars if we drive too close.

I figure I got points for not turning my brights on.

He took the next exit at high speed. He must've thought I was totally psycho. I didn't manage to feel bad about it until after I'd had a good night's sleep, I'm afraid.

G (who sometimes lets her mean streak get the better of her)

Well...
I am not a "slacker" on the roads. I travel at the posted speed limit or a bit above it.
Most people get tailgated because the person behind them doesn't have the patience to notice it is them who are hindering everyone's safety by driving way over the speed limit. For some people fast is never fast enough. You admit your a fast driver so why do the other drivers who are driving the speed limit or a bit over get called slackers. I understand that some people can drive too slow and cause accidents, but I think more are caused by people who think they have some superior ability enabling them to proceed faster than they should. I especially like the drivers who pass me on the city streets with tires squealing and burning only to be waiting for me at the red light. I always remember one fast savvy driver who was passing everyone on the highway nearly causing accidents as he passed by, looking so smug that he got ahead of the crowd. My son who was 10 at the time asked me why I couldn't drive like him and I told him that the guy was rushing to his own accident.Sure enough twenty minutes down the road, there he was under a transport truck dead! BTW if I am going the speed limit or slighty above it and a person wants to pass me and gets upset it is their problem not mine.....

Hi Mandy, first time we've spoken (I think!)

I'm suspecting here our relevant sexual positions of choice, you submissive, me dominant, have their motoring equivalents too, and that both sets of choices are symptomatic of our differing personalities.

To explain, I prefer to drive at my speed, not have it dictated to me by traffic conditions or indeed arbitrary laws put in place decades ago when cars had awful suspension and lax road-handling. I drive a powerful car, and that is too a mirror of my persona.

Neither of us is at 'fault', except me in the legal sense for driving over the speed limit. It is not your 'fault' for being tailgated, but it IS the result of your driving style. If you drove like me - illegally fast - you wouldn't be tailgaited.

We are who we are. The conflict arises when markedly different driving styles compete for limited road space. On a 10 lane highway, it isn't too much of a problem. The Ferraris can zoom past to their hearts content, and the Skoda's can potter along at 29.999 mph. Everyone is content. On a crowded London street, if I need to get through a green light, and I don't think the driver ahead will make it through, I'll get around and be a mile up the road before the light turns green again. Again, everyone goes home happy.

Speaking of happy...

(Throws FallenAngel5 over his bonnet for some 'gear-shifting')

:sex:


Jay.

CT is the COUNTRY?!?

Watch out for the gal from the lift driving the number 14 bus or you may not make it to 40!

I react differently at different times. I try to take the Lilith approach and assume there is an emergency that they need to get to and wish them well... but sometimes when it is obvious they are just people that forget it's a public road and not a raceway I will make sure they cannot pass, as long as there is another car I can pace beside. People that try to argue that they need to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic need a reality check. There is a speed limit. LIMIT. As in maximum. Not recommended speed, not mininum speed. By law you should not drive above that speed. One phrase that kills me when I hear people say it... "They could at LEAST go the speed limit." So many people view it as the mininum you should go. Then they bitch about police unfairly stopping speeders just to 'get their quota.' Like there is ANY trouble finding a car exceeding the speed limit. Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying I'm the perfect driver, cruising along right at 60, not going a smidge over. I just get irritated with the attitude a lot of people have when they are out on the freeway. :rant:

I have a problem with selfish behavior period...if you think you have the right to endanger me with irresponsible behavior, be it driving or anything else...I'll let you know that your rights, needs, desires, etc. do not supercede everyone else's

i swear.......a lot when i drive, stupid bastards always getting in my way and pissing me off

How nice for you. What about those of us who don't want to drive by your personal standards that I'm sure involve as much education, study and research as the arbitrary laws established? Have we, in doing so, relinquished our right to a safe ride home?

I usually just shake my head and call them an idiot. I heard this quote somewhere: "Isn't it funny how everyone that drives slower than you is an idiot and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?" Lol! Thats exactly how I think when I'm driving come to think about it.

That's an old Geoge Carlin line... and so true!

Ok, let's talk about rights. Would you say you have the right not to be killed by a truck that skids, through no fault of the driver/manufacturer, and plows into your vehicle?

If you answer "yes", I'd remind you of the gritty and occasionally bloody reality that the 'right' to something does not automatically grant that something.

If "No", I would congratulate you for your unsugared worldview.

My crimes are victimless. Nobody has died or suffered injury as a result of my speeding. I haven't had an accident in 4 years, when a car brushed against mine while we were both doing 10mph in a 30mph zone, the only inconvenience being a small amount of her paint that I had to scrape gently off my bumper. It was, of course, her fault.

Before that I hadn't had an accident in over 10 years of motoring. I'm a pretty good judge of driver psychology, I can usually predict which vehicles will behave in what ways after a minute of observation.

I'm experienced enough to keep a greater distance from cars with dents in the rear, indicating that the driving style of the owner is likely unduly hesitant and overly cautious, braking sharply when the vast majority of other drivers with more self-confidence would have continued driving.

I'm rarely wrong when, faced with a choice of two adjacent cars at the traffic lights, deciding which will proceed the fastest, and thus which one I should pull up behind. I use group of criteria (that I can list on request) to make this decision, and can do so within a couple of seconds.

My policies lead to overall satisfaction. I get to my destination quickly, and the people I circumvent get to theirs at the same time they would have anyway. But does that matter? It's not like they were in a rush ANYWAY...

:)

Jaybee.

What does that have to do with purposefully disregarding the law?


Yet.

If you need to drive that fast, go to a speedway, not a freeway.