Pissing people off by being nice

confuZion3 wrote: Slefain, I hope you called the five-oh on that one. People like that need a good dose of Johnny Law from time to time. And the hilarity of knowing that their insurance company was going to triple their rates or, more likely, drop them altogether would have been worth the 10 minutes spent on the phone with the police.

Considering the punishment this guy was dealing out to his own dashboard and steering wheel, I really didn't care to stick around. I figured the damage alone to what was probably his mama's SUV would be punishment enough. And in this area you can't always count on someone having insurance anyway. No, him knowing that he did several thousands of dollars in damage to his own SUV was enough for me. I just brushed the paint chips off the window sills and popped the mirror back on. Unfortunately I also proved to myself that when driving a car I don't care about in traffic, I no longer drive defensively. This could be bad.....

kinda opposite, but I EFFING SWEAR...the next time Im cruising along and some ahole zooms down th exit only lane to try to get a few cars ahead and waits at the end to get back over, and Im the dumba$$ nice enough to let them over AND THEY PROCEED TO DO 5 MPH UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT IN RUSH HOUR....I swear Im gonna stuff the rear end of their douchemobile

I don't get angry, but I sometimes make a game of tweeking people that do.

I had a good one a couple sundays ago. We were approaching a construction zone that narrowed down to one lane. I tapped my brakes to alow down and the guy behind my flashed his brights. He then flashed them every time i touched my brakes. As traffic slowed to the posted 45mph he started screaming. I could tell that when the second lane opened he was going to try and pass me so I leaft a little gap between me and the car ahead. When the second lane opened I stayed ahead and picked back up to about 70 passing the slower traffic in the right lane. Twice he contemplated passing me on the little bit of a shoulder on the left, but both time I blocked him. We then hit a second work zone where the brake pedal flashing brights routine started again. The next time I got into the second lane first again but he went to my left into an imaginary lane and I saw the kid seats in the back so I backed off and let him have the space just as we hit a third work zone, where he hit his brakes and I flashed my brights. The third time I hit my brights he got so mad he threw his drink at his wife.

Wally wrote: The third time I hit my brights he got so mad he threw his drink at his wife.

Some people really need anger management courses. Wow.

Sometimes I get caught up in the vehicle tit for tat. I shouldn't, but I do. I have found that riding a motorcycle made me very zen like as I can't do much on a 500lb motorcycle vs just about any 2000lb car!

People are much more civil face to face. Much less so in a car, on the internet, etc. I'm just as guilty as anyone of all of this...

shiny happy persons scare me to death when I'm driving the AE92, because I'd have to find rare parts from Japan and would be quite likely to end up with chassis damage, so when I run into them I just speed off, especially when they're tailgating and honking at me when I'm already well above the speed limit. I also like to tick off the riceboys who want to get into street races with me. I pretend I'm ignoring them but I take advantage of traffic so that I always ease ahead of them as they're trying to spur me on. I can tell that really pisses them off

As for the Samurai, you'd have to drop it off a cliff to damage the chassis and I can fix body damage in one afternoon with stuff from the hardware store, so bring 'em on. A little while ago I was headed out for lunch and someone ahead was navigating a construction zone to get out onto the main road. They were a good distance ahead so I slowed down a bit to let them out. A "ZR" (minivan-bus, scourge of the road) went absolutely ballistic behind me. I then made it my goal to be the most generous person on the road and let everyone out that I saw, shiny happy people one and all were treated with equal generosity. The ZR was revving and honking like mad, which hurts a lot in an open soft top, but I was hurting him worse and that's all that mattered. Mind you, the whole time this ZR had nothing more than 60-80 feet of open pavement to gain from passing me.

This is bs, why dont i have any sweet road rage stories?

Lesley wrote: I'm giggling as I type this... Total asshat driving a beemer and weaving in and out of lanes comes right up on my butt, jiggling back and forth with rage. The rear washer squirter, on my mx-3 had come loose from its moorings and sits up real high. The fluid flies out in a horizontal stream, so I kept letting him have it. Bet he chewed his own teeth off.

My old Jeep Cherokee did the same thing...one of many things I miss An old favorite song: "If I had a rocket launcher, some sonofabich would die" usually comes to mind

GlennS wrote: This is bs, why dont i have any sweet road rage stories?

This isn't really road rage, but I was travelling east on the main road in front of my college at ~50km/h. A pathfinder type thing, swiftly lane changes with his front bumper about even with my front end. If I wouldn't have been paying attention and got the f*&k out of the way I would have been in the hospital. It was a red light 100 meters in front of us, and yes, I got out and let the guy know how pissed I was. As I've always said, if you're going to take me out, it better be bad enough to send me to the hospital or you are going to be one sad mother berkleyer.

So much for "pissing people off by being nice", now it's a litany of GRM people who are a little bit on the edge

I was driving Basil the Land Rover in Telluride once. Now, Basil isn't the fastest truck on the road. When he was made in 1966, he only had about 70-odd horsepower and the aerodynamics of a barn. 40 years of use hasn't helped, and neither does driving at, what 8,000' above sea level? So when I'm hit with a big grade, I have to slow down.

I was climbing a hill heading towards Mountain Village. It's a short, twisty steep bit of two-lane that's probably no more than a 1/2 mile long, but Basil was down to about 25 mph. No big problem, the limit there is 35. The guy behind me was getting steamed. Just when we're coming up to the end of the hill and a place I can pull over to let traffic by, he peels out and goes screaming past me on a curve. After all, he'd probably lost 30 seconds of his important day in the mountains by sitting behind us on that hill. Gutsy pass on that turn, too, but he must have had x-ray vision to see there was nothing coming down the hill.

Too bad he didn't have x-ray vision to see the police car in full livery that was right behind him when he decided to do this.

HiTempguy wrote: and yes, I got out and let the guy know how pissed I was. As I've always said, if you're going to take me out, it better be bad enough to send me to the hospital or you are going to be one sad mother berkleyer.

MAN! Be careful doing that stuff. Here in VA people have gotten shot for just such antics. I've read that the shooter usually gets off after defending themselves in court.

No rage or pissing people off stories that I can think of, but I thought it was hilarious when I was driving in NYC in my BABE rally car. There was construction and some kind of festival going on when we got into town, and it took us 3 hours to get through Manhattan to Brooklyn where we were meeting friends. Anyway, about every five minutes in crawling traffic, some jack-hole would try to ease the nose of their car in front of me, after driving in the wrong lane, to advance his position. I'd just keep inching forward, since I'm driving a $100 car I just painted with a roller. They'd eventually stop. Couldn't they tell I had nothing to lose?

In the car I try to go all "Zen" and just let the asshats go flying by so I can just wave as I eventually pass the flaming wreckage, unless somebody puts me in harms way- then I may go from Mr. Rogers to Alien life form in nano-seconds....

There were a 5 or 6 of us going up north for a nice summer weekend and the four lane highway was packed. For whatever reason we had like 3 cars and a truck with a boat and we were occupying both lanes but it was all bumper to bumper in both so it didnt really matter. Then some kid in a riced up civic comes blasting up on our back bumpers bouncing around trying to get through. Finally it opening up and my buddy in his late 90s GXP let him go buy and then kid bolted by, but my buddy tailed after him. They were gone. A couple minutes and a couple miles later my buddy drifted back to our group of cars and the civic was gone. Until we saw a smoking pile of civic smoldering on a frontage road; we honked and waved.

benzbaron wrote: I like that Lesley, my dad has a rear washer and one of my uncles said he should get a remote reservoir and put soluble oil in it. Turn the window nozzle upside down and nobody will stay on your tail for long.

What you want to put in there is deer urine.

When people start behaving badly in traffic I start taking their picture. They will either stop or they will go away, but they don't continue to harass me.

Only one good one for me. Tooling north on I95, in Ft. Lauderdale. Early rush hour, traffic heavy but moving well. I'm in my baby car, a 79 280ZX. Up comes a car full of guys, a little Isuzu. No more than a foot off my bumper. I tapped my brakes, they get closer. I hit the brakes hard, (not smart, I know) I see the front end head for the dirt. He then passed me on the right and cut over in front of me. Did not judge well, hit my right front fender. I did a complete 360 in the middle of 95, he did a 270. All traffic comes to a screaming halt. I'm a peaceable guy, but am now seeing blood in my eyes and went for them, ready to rumble. Might not have been a very good idea, as there were 6 of them. About this time a well dressed woman came running up screaming at me not to do anything stupid. Turns out she was a federal prosecuter and had seen the whole thing from right behind me. About that time 4 FHP cars show up. She had called. They took my statement, then the driver of the other car. Them this big Ol' redneck trooper turned to the other driver and said in his best southern drawl "You been lyin to me, boy" No license, no insurance, illegal alien. Three more in the car had warrants and went in cuffs. Took 3 cruisers to take them all. Would have been good TV.

Oops, double post. Never did that before.

confuZion3 wrote: How about this? You're traveling up your interstate only to hit a wall of stopped cars. 'Crap. Must be an accident ahead.' Um. Yeah, you were right. There was an accident ahead. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FREEWAY! Really? Is it that interesting that you need to hit your brakes, come to a near stop, and LOOK at the twisted-up cars on the other road? Sometimes, emergency crews need to work on both sides of the roadway to clear these things and I understand that. But when an hour-long backup is caused by rubber-necking, a little piece of me dies inside.

Happens all the time in Canada. It's hilarious to see it on TV, four lanes brought to a crawl, and then once they pass the accident it's all back to normal.

Since they send out an ambulance and fire truck to every accident, why not also send a truck with a trailer that can deploy a great big curtain to hide the accident from drivers in the other lane?

Not really me being infuriatingly polite. But I had a jerk in a Smart tailgating me down the freeway, with totally empty lanes on either side. I guess he was probably trying to draft. Well, I brake checked him a couple of times, and he decided I was not the best person to follow. So he pulls around me.

...and shows me the logo and phone number for the computer repair company that owns the car. So I decided to give them a little call.

Xceler8x wrote: MAN! Be careful doing that stuff. Here in VA people have gotten shot for just such antics. I've read that the shooter usually gets off after defending themselves in court.

Yea, see, here in Canada, you usually don't get shot for yelling at someone, and most people don't carry guns here. Even if they did, they'd have to show how they thought a gun versus a guy with nothing in his hands was a legitimate use of it, AND if you do have a permit for carrying a gun (which very few people do) it has to be transported in a locked case IIRC. Trust me, I am not afraid to let my feelings be known to somebody, especially to a dumbass who needs to learn how to drive.

I'm a pretty level headed person, I'm not going to walk out to a gee'd up SUV with limo tint and rap music blaring out of it

I had a taxi screw with me one time in traffic. Dangerous stuff, forcing us both to a halt repeatedly on a multi-lane road. Dumb thing to do when your driver ID is right on the trunklid. He didn't answer the radio calls from his dispatcher when I called, probably a poor move on his part.

I have the perfect anti-road-rage vehicle: my old Cadillac. When you're driving this, you don't care. You're mellow and relaxed. Someone wants to get aggressive and cut up traffic, you just smile and wave. The biggest problem is that I find myself driving 5 mph under the limit. Maybe I need to get a nice hat that I put on for motoring in to the city.

And before you put the nice paint on that old Cadillac, you can see people second-guessing their decision to pull out in front of you. Can't imagine why.

In reply to confuZion3:

Make sure when you kick that door in that before the cops arrive, you make that shoe print disappear. Just the voice of experience speaking.

I have seen so many stupid things i cant remember them all. I do the best i can to keep my involvement in such incidents to a minimum though.
A few examples:

An older man in an F150 driving very agressively, he was at first behind the vehicle i was a passenger in, and visibly angry about a construction delay, then later passed both us and a semi truck at the end of a passing lane, then shortly after than passed one semi truck with another one coming toward him and ended up driving inbetween the 2 of them.

Someone in a large AMG mercedes driving fast though traffic and swerving across from the slow lane to the fast lane and almost spinning it when he overcorrected after driving into the dirt.

The same thing happened agin a few days ago, but with a suv and a uhaul trailer with 2 atvs in it, which almost flipped over.

When I leave my house to go toward most places i need to do, I make a left turn onto a residential street, a right turn onto a 4 lane road (with the intersection controled by stop signs), then another left or right turn after about 1/3 mile onto a larger road. On the short section of 2 lane road, people always want to pass you just to slam on the brakes to stop at the signal to turn onto the larger road, when they would have plenty of time and room to pass after the signal changes. Oh well, people are dumb.

There are only really 2 things that really bother me, people who merge onto the freeway at 35 mph when there is a row of cars coming along the freeway in the slow lane, and people who wait until the last minute and slam on the brakes behind you when you are stopped at a light or in traffic or whatever. Both me and someone i know have gotten in accidents from people doing that.

Keith wrote: Too bad he didn't have x-ray vision to see the police car in full livery that was right behind him when he decided to do this.

I LOL'd

oldsaw wrote:

spdracer315 wrote: Theres too much traffic on the roads, and alot of people cant/shouldnt drive. Am i the only one that sees a simple solution to all this?

Oh yeah! There is a simple solution, but you have to deal with all the politicians and moronic voters who believe there is a Constitutional "right" to drive. In other words, ain't gonna happen unless it's tied to another touchy "rights" subject.

ah... there we go... people like that cause others to talk To God while in a school zone which would be defined as prayer on school grounds (asking God to Damn something is directed at God right?)... therefore they MUST be removed from legally driving as they cause others to possibly hear a prayer while on gov property...