Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Road Rage

I'm still shaking (adrenaline rush). What is wrong with some people? I'm driving to work this morning and some idiot in a truck is riding everyone's tail, switching lanes every few seconds, cutting in and out of traffic. He switches lanes right on my a@@, so I tap the brakes. He lays on the horn, pulls up beside me and starts swerving into my lane as if he's going to ram me(he's holding a cup of coffee by the way, so apparently this is his normal drive into work?). So I slow down and turn on a side street and of course he follows me, lights on high beam, laying on the horn. So I floor it, he does the same, I let off and when he gets up beside me again, I make a u-turn, make a number of other quick turns and lose him.

It amazes me how this guy is ready to kill me because he's pissed off that I reacted to him riding me! This kind of thing has happened many times before, and these aren't just young hot-heads drunk after partying all night. These are 30-40 year olds on their way to work? What was he going to do if he caught me? I've had them get out of their car and bang on my window trying to get me out of the car! Do they ever stop to think that I might have a gun sitting in the glove box and might use it in self-defense? It makes me want to spend the money to get my license to carry (we can in Texas with a permit).

Thanks for letting me vent!

...you live in texas... they have this neat law thats abbreviated CC.... i'll let you think about the rest but i would.

that's crazy....i've never had anyone chase me before, though i have seen some real nutcases out there. not long ago, this guy in an old crapped-out accord cut me off aggressively when there really was no need for it - it's not like we were real close to the next exit or anything, and if he'd have used his turn signal to let me know he needed over i would've let him in, but that swerve right in front of me got me a little irritated, and i decided to stay where i was - meaning that the 40' gap he swung into didn't get any bigger, meaning i was pretty close to his tail for 1/4 mile...and all of a sudden the crackhead swerved off the road onto the shoulder and motioned for me to come up beside him or pass him or whatever. i didn't want any of that, so i just motioned for him to go on, and he did....as i drove along, just shaking my head in amazement.

while we're on the subject, one thing that really irritates me is coming into my office complex every morning. we have two stop signs and 3 speed bumps over the course of the entrance drive, and while i'm not above pulling a rolling stop through the stop signs (like everyone else does), i have to crawl over the speed bumps to avoid bouncing myself into the headliner and destroying my alignment and probably my suspension. for some reason or another, though, several morons around here think they can just drive right through the back end of my car when i do this....they get right up on me and practically rear-end me, which really irritates me. some guy did it to me this morning in a buick park avenue (guess he doesn't even feel the bumps w/ the suspension in that boat), and i walked into the building behind him (after noticing him casting a ticked-off glance toward my car (i parked much farther away than he did). i was actually planning on making a comment to him, since i caught up to him at the elevator, but there was some other lady getting on, too, and i didn't want to start anything with her right there....

all in all, road rage is a scary thing. i'll admit that i get irritated easily when people tailgate me or cut me off, and sometimes i drive a little too aggressively myself (thus making me slightly hypocritical, i suppose), but i can't fathom why you'd get so ticked off that you'd chase somebody off the beaten path or, worse, pull out a gun or something. crazy world we live in....

Don't get me started on the tailgating/road rage topic again! BIGGEST "pet peeve" ever!

Stephen

I had something like that happen not too long ago, but it had a pretty funny ending. I was driving through town and someone got right on my back end and just stayed there, matched me turn for turn for probably 10 or 15 minutes, even when I was just about to my house. So instead of me going to my house and having this nut job find out where I lived(since I'd given the brake tap a couple of times) I just kept on goin with him on my tail. Once I got someplace where there was a fairly curvy road with a higher speed limit, I just dropped a gear and took off and had him lost in just a couple of minutes, I turned around a little down the road and went home. Next day, one of my friends came over....driving the car that was following me. Seems he'd gotten a new car and was tryin to get me to pull over so he could show me. I thought it was a funny ending anyway.

Do not tap your brakes when someone is tailgating you! :rolleyes: At the least it accomplishes nothing and at the most it gets you chased down side streets. Let law enforcement handle tailgaters. All you have to worry about is this guy running into the back of you so just make sure you've got ample room in front of you for if you really need to use your brakes and eventually your tailgater will go around and tailgate someone else.

Karl

yeah don't tap the brakes.....
just downshift and compression brake!!

How do you think I'm going to "sell" my Buick when I'm done with it, LOL.

To some tailgater who doesn't understand what my right turn signal means, not to mention that Buicks must really slow down to make turns.

Like the turn into my subdivision that is 1/2 block from a traffic light and about 50% of those following me believe the signal is for the light, and not my subdivision

TB

Ok, I agree I didn't make things better by tapping the brakes, but I've got a truck less than a foot from my bumper, in heavy traffic doing 50-60 mph. This guy smashing into me at that speed could push me into someone else, causing a multiple car collision. This guys endangering more than just my rear bumper. I didn't jump on the brakes enough to make anyone else have to brake, only him because he was riding me.

Realistically, you think "law enforcement" is going to be around when this stuff happens? They rarely are (nothing against the cops, it's just a numbers game, many more of us than them and they can't be everywhere at once).

My problem is that if someone does something stupid like that to me, I'm more likely to get out of the car if challenged - even knowing the consequences. I have to try very, very hard to keep my cool in a situation like that.