Curious ~ Road Rage
 

Every once in a while I flip them off but usually I "wish them well". I asume they must be having some horrible emeergency that requires them to act like an asshole, and wish them well.

Well, the last time some did something stupid I burst into tears because I'm hormonal...but that's another story..lol. Usually I shake my head and say whatever. Unless they do something really bad. Then I flip them off.

Set phasers on "deep fat fry", take a bead on the suckers, and smoke 'em!

I usually have a shake of the head a mumbled 'bastard' - gotta be careful in the big city in the South, never know how is packing a gun.

I'll usually lay on the horn, give them a dirty look, or occasionally flip them off. I guess it depends on what exactly they did...and there are usually some swear words to follow... ;)

I used to be a real a****** about it. I would get all worked up about it, honk the horn swear at them and get all upset. I then read one too many reports of people getting in serious car accidents and other stuff when they got worked up over things like that so I have managed to learn to let it go.

I am still a fairly aggressive driver and have been learning to tone that down a bit as well.

I just call them a "cockhead" and hope they'll hook my bull-bar on the way through.

Quarter ton of steel split between the front and rear give the van a certain presence.

I ususally just shake my head and wish them well. I feel I should be forgiving since I am like an old lady driver and probably piss people off all the time. :D

If they're tailgating, I use my brakes. When the least expect it. :D

Otherwise, I just get competitive. :hot:

I’m with osuche for the tailgaters. I’ll usually make exaggerated head movements looking in my mirrors first. If they don’t get the hint, I’ll show them some abrupt brake lights. That normally stops it from looking like I’m towing them. I have a friend that liked to use the hand brake with his thumb on the button to slow it down without any lights until last year when he got hit in the ass doing it. LMAO

Most other offenses are taking them away from me so I just let them go…………. and pray that I’ll see them pulled over ahead by a cop or find them tangled with somebody else, so I can stop and laugh at them. I only got to do that once, but it’s given me a lot of tolerance with the hope. :D



I have a great sight gage about young driving assholes and old driving assholes I’ll tell you if we ever get to meet. :grin:

I wish them well because they are obviously rushing home to their sick children! ;)






and if that doesn't work
I imagine them being pulled over down the street and getting a ticket. Please note I said "imagine". Sheesh! lol

Tailgaters....I usually take my foot off the gas. I apply it again when I see they notice I have slowed down and the anger starts to form on their faces. I then ease up off the gas again and so on and so on and so on. I thought one guy's head was going to explode one day, he got so red faced.

Secondly if I get a face to face chance I ask them what store the bought their license from.....ohhh...the sputtering and spewing makes me laugh!

Tailgaters I usually give the option of passing me, if they don't take the hint I may play brake light bingo with them...
There is an intersection near the house where many people seem to be completely unaware of the stop sign there...I used to have to pass this way every day to pick up the boy from daycare, & learned to be wary of the ignoramuses...but from time to time I would have to come to a screeching stop with a few close calls, & since I had the window open anyway, fear & adreniline would overcome the brain censor that usually keeps my mouth shut with the kid in the car, & let loose with a string of creatively foul slurs of these peoples' IQ & family history...

I used to brake-check them but now I just give them the finger as they zoom by. Mind you, I live in the country. Don't have to worry about getting shot at, just having a cow pie thrown...assuming they have one handy. :D

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.

"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."

Just because you think you drive well doesn't mean you do. Every aggressive driver I know thinks they are right and the rest of the world needs to just have their eyes opened...gee that reminds me of another thread.


Where I live this selfish behavior could get you shot....that could take care of the question of your rights.

By driving however you want to regardless of the law, you are endangering other people. Whether you think so or not. I have a right not to be endangered by you. Don't cloud the issue by bringing in nonsensical scenarios. Stick to the point. If you do whatever the hell you feel like on the road, you're driving irresponsibly and putting those around you at risk.

What about the satisfaction of people that are obeying the law? Your policies don't satisfy them. They appear to only satisfy you. If that's all that's important to you then be man enough to admit it.

I really don't see where this conversation is going. As far as 'admit' goes, I'm PROUD that I get from A to B quickly, and SAFELY. Maybe not legally, but SAFELY. We have ABS, Airbags, sports suspension and excellent road-holding. Oh, I'm not safe? Well, neither is living, let alone driving. My policy of risk-minimisation has worked BRILLIANTLY since the 80's, fulfilling two often conflicting priorities - arriving at my destination safely, and punctually. My accident rate is far below the average for the general population. I've read no case here to change it, even slightly. I'm an open-minded guy.

If anyone has a salient, RELEVANT point to make, I'll reply to it. I'm not sure what I'm doing here fending off these nebulous, and increasingly emotional charges.

Aside from that, I think it's best to leave the matter here, guys. Next topic.


Jaybee.

Maybe your attitude has gotten you here.....people have tried to politely point out to you that when you feel that your opinions, desires, etc...are more important than what has been determined to for the greater good of the community at large, and you act accordingly, you are willingly endangering others. And in general not being a law biding citizen. That is your choice but it's not your right, or it would not be where I live. Here agressive driving is prosecutable. They arrest people for it everyday.

The thread was about people's reactions to agressive/problematic drivers....this is how people react. They often feel threatened, intimidated, and bullied. It's all relevant. You can't really answer the question because you are that driver it seems.

You make it clear that your feelings (wanting to get where you are going fast) are more important than what has been decided with much research and investigation, to be safe driving habits. Just because you have not been in an accident does not mean that your driving habits will not cause one for someone else.

Ok....next case!!!lol ;)

errrr...I mean next topic

Maybe it will become RELEVANT to you one day if you kill someone due to your driving habits...... :rolleyes:

Let me start by saying I have not yet read all these posts. But to respond to the original question...lets just say i'm probably not typical.

When I was younger and I used to drive a fast stick shift automobile and I encountered a slow moving person in front of me....well let me correct that...slower moving than I was and i was stuck behind them, it would infuriate me. My response was always to downshift to the lowest gear I could, as i went around them, spinning the tires...making noise...and leaving them and dust and smoke behind as a way to voice my displeasure with them.

Eventually I realized this was bad bad behavior and I decided to save myself, and likely someone else by buying slower, safer, auto-transmission vehicles. I still long for a stick shift, and if ever in the detriot area with a corvette or other fast stick-shift type ride if you see me do not let me drive it, or be prepared for tires squealing from the moment I enter the drivers seat to the moment I leave. But I digress.

As to what I do with tailgaters. Well I still do drive faster than most traffic in my area, and reside mainly in the left hand lane. If someon faster than me approaches and does not go around but simply backs away to a safe distance, I am more than happy to move over and let them by.

HOWEVER, if some jerk who thinks they own the road drives as fast as they can to my rea end and proceeds to tailgate, flash lights or beeps horn, they shall be prepared for my wrath. I'm sorry mr. jerk-off, you don't own the road, and i am nto required to move becuase you want me to. That said, on to my wrath, well what I normally do is make their trip with me on the highway as LONG as possible. I will hunt them down like wild coyotes and trap them in traffic. I will slow down so as they can't get past because the traffic in the lane next to us now has a mile long train of cars that won't let anyone in. Did i mention I do most of my driving in heavy rush hour traffic? And I will continue this so long as they are on the same highway until one of us gets off of it. Iv'e played the game from both sides, I know EXACTLY what it takes to make their head explode, and I will be doing my best to make that happen.

This may make me a bastard, or a jerk, or simply just a not so nice person. It may make me the #1 candidate to get shot in the metro detroit area. The simple fact is this. If you want to be courteous, I can be so too. If you want to be an A-Hole, guess what, I am a bigger one than you.

Or more simply put. Treat others as which you yourself would like to be treated. :)

What are the speed limits like in the UK and Australia? I can't stand going the speed limit unless it's raining or there are other people on the road and then it's a matter of how safe I feel. There are alot of people complaining about tailgaiters, do they tailgait you on multiple lane roads or are they doing it when you/they have nowhere to go, either way it's plain stupid. I only tailgate when there is some granny in the fast lane and even then its very rare.

With age comes grace I guess.... :rolleyes:

Tailgaters are a major frustration for me as well. Typically, depending on where I am driving, I will tap my brake lights to inform them to "back off". If that doesn't work, the I usually slow down to allow the driver behind me to pass. It isn't that important to me to get upset at that other person as they probably won't even realize that they are causing a negative reaction to their discourtious driving habit - so I don't get worked up about it.

I also don't get too troubled by what we call "Sunday drivers" around these parts. You know the type - the driver isn't really watching what speed they are traveling at (which is typically 15-20 mph under the posted speed limit) and looking at everything but the road around them. (Hey Harriet! See that deer in the field over yonder? - lol)

I am more of a defensive driver and the cargo that I carry is very precious to me. Even if I am late (which is seldom as I do plan my time well), I will take the proper time and precautions when I drive.

As far as the other driver who likes to speed and arrive at a destination quickly, the only concern that I would have is that eventually the percentages will work against you. Either you will find yourself (hopefully not) in an accident, or you will startle some old soul into driving into a ditch or another vehicle. You cannot contol all the variables and I believe that is the message others have been trying to get across to you.