[rpvitiello]

The other day I'm traveling on a 2 lane highway, somewhat fast. There is a pick up truck going fairly slow in the left hand lane, there is no other cars on this section of road. I don't want to pass the guy on the right so wile I'm still pretty far back I give my high beams a quick flash. As I'm getting closer the guy still hasn't moved, so I give it one more quick flash. Then the driver, without signaling moves to the MIDDLE of the highway blocking both lanes (there is no full exit ramp here) and then SLAMS on the breaks. I then have to slam on the breaks, he then accelerates quickly, and then slams on the breaks again. This time I have to swerve to avoid being hit by him, and I then just floor it past him on the right. He then turns on his high beams. So I just let of the gas and slowly start decelerating until he finally turns them off, and then I floor it leaving him behind.

This just happened about an hour ago now, so I'm still a bit shaken up...

Today I'm traveling home on the mane road into my neighborhood. Its a 2 lane road that's a little twisty, with a speed limit of 45. As I was driving, I'm coming up on an Audi that's doing about 40, so when I get to a pass zone, I pass him. Well wile I'm passing him he accelerates, then when I get in front of him he puts on his high beams, and starts tailgating me. To try and get him off I hit my break to turn on the break light, and accelerate at the same time. The guy keeps tailgating me. At this point I'm doing 75, he's still tailgating me, and I'm approaching my turn to get home. Scared over what this guy is gonna do I keep going straight, but I slow down. I then start to turn into a small shopping center and signal for him to turn off, he then passes me on the right, and then comes to a stop in the shopping center. I pull up next to him and ask him if something is wrong, and the guy starts yelling at me "lets go you wanner fight right hear right now" The man was in his 50's I then tell him to please calm down and tell me what's wrong, and then he tells me "you were speeding, were north of the Merrit parkway and EVERY road has a speed limit of 25" I then say OK sir do you want to call the cops, he then says "you leave right now or I'm gonna be the cops" after than he floors his car out of the parking lot. I now start to call 911, and try to follow him to get his plate, which I couldn't make out. To get away from me the man proceeds to drive at speeds of about 60-70 on side residential roads with a speed limit of 15 mph. I decide its not worth the risk to try and follow him to get the plate. I did have the police come to the parking lot where we had the encounter, and I filled out a police report. In my neighborhood there is this one Audi that is notorious for being aggressive, and performing allot of illegal stuff (he tried to run a few of my friends off the road before because the were going to fast, too slow or any other random reason) I'm wondering if this is the Audi now.

So anyway I'm am getting REALLY tired of road rage here and people doing stupid **** like this! WTF is this in defense of there "turf" or some **** and there offended now that you passed them? Well Anyway I was shacking after that encounter. I did get a good look at the guy, I just couldn't get the plate, and unfortunately Audi is THE most common car in my neighborhood. He did have a weird plate, I think it was a dealer/repair plate, so if I see him again I will know the car, right now though I just wish the police could get this friggan psycho!

 

[Guest]

Well, at least you are a lot wiser than a 50 yr. grandpa

=dRe=

 

[UrbanGypsy]

I'm impressed at how you handled that situation.. good call.

I have problems here and there with road rage, but in socal, its about as frequent as a prom dress, err something like that. so I'm used to it by now. I have gotten bumped before, nearly ran off the road, almost in a few fistfights, and also had things flying at me.

When I was 15 on my first job, my boss and I were coming back from a gig. He got into a bout with another driver, who ended up throwing a full can of coke out the window and smashing against the windshield. SO my boss pulls over to his left, hands me a couple D-cel batteries, and tells me to throw them out at the guys transAm. Well I didn't wanna lose my job, and I thought it was fun for a 15yr old anyways, so I did it. He followed us back to the office, and we ditched him on the side streets. Talk about adrenaline!

 

[blackfoci]

yesterday on my day off, i decided a trip to boston market was in order being my day off, and recovering from the oddest cold i've ever had in my life. i swear, i had 3 days of massive headaches, 1 day of nose faucet, one day of dry nose, now a sore throat that wont go away. so i'm on the way back home with my overpriced greasy goodness, and pull up to the red light behind a green SunBird. we resume at the green normally, going the speed limit. traffic was a bit heavy-ish so traffic was a little slow going. i misjedged my speed so when slowing down i got a little close to the guy which might be considered tailgating for about oh, 2.3 seconds.

well this must has set him off something fierce so he pulls the sudden stop, accelerate trick about 5 times. i must have nearly rammed him several times. i gave him a quick beam flash to get him moving again, and the guy slows down to 15 mph, slowing the progress every every car behind me. so now i'm honking, the cars behind me are honking, and i finally pass him. but now i notice, this guy seems to be following me. at another stop light he leans halfway out his window for some unintelligible yelling. i could help but laughing.

so now i'm freaked out, i dont want to pull into my house and have this guy get out and confront me about whatever, so i pull into the SuperFresh so a little subterfuge. naturally he follows be every inch of the way and park behind me in a nearby spot and started yelling for my to turn around, as i walk nachalantly into the store, ignoring them. luckily he (and his buddy i then noticed) give up and sped off. of course i peeked through the window to make sure they didn't key my car or anything.

couldnt have been over 30 these guys. i spent all night trying to figure out exactly why these idiots would pull this reckless driving crap as some sort of perverted revenge scheme, and then come crasing after ME to "kick my a$$". freaks.

 

[MattZTS]

Yeah people are stupid. I was on a 1 lane road and the speed limit was 50mph. I was in front of a mitsu 3000gt doing like 30mph. So the road turns to 2 lanes for like 500 ft for passing slow people like that. I accel to get in front. So he then wants to race me. So he ends up turning off where I did and kept going slow to fast. Brake testing me if I got close. My gf at the time was actually in front of him. he was riding her ass with the highs on. He turned off only to get behind me now and high beam me and tailgate me. followed us to her house. Stopped ad yelled f u you asshole. Like I was in some kinda wrong. The dude was like a high school kid too.

 

[Ray]

hey, you did the right thing.

your area rpvitiello is notorious for aggressive driving. i hate going thru that area.

 

[MegzFocus]

North of the Merrit says it all

 

[sabasigh]

As my best friend always says in those situations..."Damn, I wish I had that Simon & Simon truck!#$%[email protected]#%"

 

[six82]

Yeah,...well handled.

I don't experience it too often as we have more cows here than cars,...but I have. The worst ever was on my motorcycle in DC. Ugh.

Let's just say it was interesting.

 

[MattHarrell]

Originally posted by MattZTS:
Yeah people are stupid.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That pretty much sums it up. Unfortunately, I deal with this kind of stupidity every day, on my 150 mile round trip commute to and from work. I'm constantly amazed, and disheartened, at the thoughtlessness and stupidity people show on the roads.

 

[cac3780]

I had a problem one time. I was going to my bf's house and I was in the right lane of the highway and it was going kind of slow. So I checked the next lane and there was someone coming up but I had enough room so I went over. Well this guy continued to tailgate me the whole way up the highway, even when I went to pass people because they were going to slow, and at one point I was doing 90 to see if he would back off, but he didn't. When I got off at my exit he followed me and then on a residential road where cars were coming both ways, he passed me. I mean why would he risk someone else's life because he is mad at me for something. So he almost hit another car and when he got in front of me, he slammed on his brakes. I gave him the finger and he got out of his car, and asked me if I had a problem. Now I am a 23 year old girl and a 35-40 year old man gets out of his car, do you think I am really going to get out? No I rolled down my window and asked him what his problem was and told him to grow up. I was so shaken that I didn't even get to look at his license plate. As soon as I told my bf about it, I broke down in tears, I didn't even know how scared I was until I told him about it.

 

[Ashley D.]

My bf and I were just cruising up on the new highway that they built around here up on the mountain. i didnt notice it but there was this old guy with a KID tailgating us all the way down the mountain. We pulled off down this lil road, just barely big enough for 2 cars and he continued to tailgate us. So my bf slowed down, going the speed limit I might add (it was 30 or 35 I think) and he continued to ride our behind. So this road turns into a 2 lane road later on so my bf starts to accelerate, I turn to see and this stupid old man passes us on a double line! Of course we hit the speed limiter on his truck (90) in no time and all of a sudden, this old guy WITH A KID slams on the brakes and goes 20 down the road and starts shaking his finger at us in the rearview mirror. Well, my bf tries to pass him and he swerves over so he cant do it. Over and over, slamming on the brakes and swerving so we cant pass. At the moment Im very scared at what this crazy man WITH A KID is gonna do cause I can see him moving his lips and shaking his fist at us. Then he gets to the end of the road and takes off. I think he was scared because he was hottailing it down the road and riding other peoples tails too, trying to get away from us. i told my bf to calm down cause he was scaring me and he did.
Another thing I hate is when you pass some asshole at night going 15 miles under the speed limit and when you pass them they suddenly turn on there highbeams and leave them on.

 

[Egz]

Down here, there was recently a horrible incident where one person was beaten to death, because he was traveling slow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51950-2003Apr7.html

 

[Ashley D.]

Man, that almost made me cry..that's so awful that he was just out to get his newspaper and ended up getting killed. If someone is going slow just go around them, geez.

 

[xerofall]

Unfortunately we aren't in Europe. The flashing high beams to us isn't a "please move" signal. We take it as a "Get the **** out of the way!" And it makes people angry, for some reason. "HOW DARE THEY FLASH ME!!!" or "He's in a hurry, I'm not, I'm gonna make his life miserable by not moving."

So I don't do that. Also, never tap your brakes. Just let off the accelerator... you'll slow down enough for them to get the point, and let them pass. I know it sucks, but if someone rear ends you, it will be more likely their fault.

Just relax, alow more time to get to places so you can just cruise in peace.

In the end it's just not worth it.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, it's true.. Drive on autobahn and you will see Porches, M3, S4 flashing headlights behind you. It scared the hell of me in my uncle VW little Polo

=dRe=

 

[richsilver]

I can't belive how often I've been in these situations myself lately.

The ones at fault are giving grief to me.

The last time was one of the best examples.I was minding my own business on a residential road following a new Grand Prix.I didn't think I was tailgating,but later I guess the driver did.We made a turn and after my stop and turn I caught up with the guy while he put the brake check thing on me.(One thing I never do and thus hate

is brake checking).He did this a few times and then proceeded to go about 10mph.As I got tired of this I decided to go around quickly.(You'd think if you didn't want someone behind you would just let them go,right).Noooo.He guns his car too and trys to keep me behind.This is worse to me than brake checking.

I pulled in front of him closely but safely.We pulled to a stop on the road and his wife is hanging out the window screaming obsenities at me.Here's the best part,while she's berating me about tailgating and going around them she says that their their small children are in the back,what was I thinking.At no time was my driving unsafe,but I,m sorry for those kids that have parents that will use that kind of language and driving ability around them.

rich

[ 04-10-2003, 11:15 AM: Message edited by: richsilver ]

 

[seminole_kev]

"I can't belive how often I've been in these situations myself lately. The ones at fault are giving grief to me."

Exactly the problem I posted here

Don't understand it. These people have never heard of the phrase "my bad".

 

[drivefaster]

Reminds me of the time in Columbus, Ohio near OSU when I blew my horn at a guy for sitting through a green light because he and his buddy were too busy looking at broads. After he flipped me off and I passed him, he got out of his car at the next light. Walked up and punched in the driver's side window.

That how I spent three days in the hospital from a piece of glass in my right eye. I also am now the happy user of an artificial lens. I fI get the cornea transplanted, I could have near 20-20 vision again.

I still have the occasional traffic confrontations, but, no-one walks up to my car. If anyone did get to do something, I would make sure that there was enough damage to his car to make it un-mistakable enough for the cops to find. The car in Columbus wasn't a very common car even in 1987 (1982-3 Nissan 280ZX silver turbo.) I had the color and knew the state of the plate, but they never found him. So much for my photographic memory.

My opinion is that you did the WRONG thing. You were right to not go home, and pulling into the shopping center, but you should have ignored the guy!

Also, I don't care how close someone tailgates me. If I have to stop , it on him to not run into me.

 

[drivefaster]

One more thing, I HATE the term " Road Rage "
Almost all of these incidents are caused by people who are looking for an excuse to get angry and fight, or are already pissed-off about something else.

I just want to get where I'm going without one or more of the brainless no-nothings or all-knowing-gods-of-everything-and-I'll-show-you-you-damn-speeding-baby-killer types plowing into my car or someone else's because there're not paying attention or doing some truly stupid thing.

Most of these people in my experience, are not very good drivers, deserve to have others angry with them, and are always complaining about other's driving, especially " Them damn speeders ".

[ 04-10-2003, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: drivefaster ]