Strange people follow me in the car

To accompany DrBoost's Strange people come in my house thread. Strange people are strange.

Two nights ago I drove two hours to check out my brother's new house. SWMBO and dog are in tow in my dad's old Suburban (over 310,000 miles on the clock and still drives like a champ) since we were delivering some chairs for him.

While driving through Cambridge, MD (about halfway there) it's getting dark and I notice a blue late model VW Passat tagging along pretty close behind. Four-lane highway with like five cars in sight so he stood out as a bit of an annoyance. Keep trucking on down the road and notice that every time I change lanes to pass someone, Mr. VW immediately changes with me and stays on my bumper.

After about 15 minutes of this he backs off a little and flashes his brights at me three times. Not quick flashes like a "Hey man, your truck is on fire." Really slow deliberate flashes, like someone messing with the stalks to try and figure out how to use the wipers or something. You know what I'm talking about. He then gets back on my bumper. No more flashes. I flashed brake lights at him. This did not phase him.

Another 15 minutes and it's dark now. My exit is coming up for the next four-lane highway. I spot road work ahead forcing all traffic to one lane. Seizing my opportunity to rid myself of this hooligan, I give ye mighty old Suburban a punch, and jump ahead of a Chrysler 300. Don't worry, nothing unsafe. Mr. VW tries to follow but can't make it and files in behind Mr. Chrysler. My exit approaches while we're all still confined to one lane.

I get into the merge lane for the next highway on my route and brake for the 25 mph clover leaf ramp. Mr. Chrysler passes me on the left. Mr. VW is following close behind him and gets to about my back door when he either suddenly realizes "it's that truck I'm totally drawn to" or "I'm about to miss my exit." He slams on the brakes and just gets on the ramp behind me so close that I can't see headlights an any mirror. We merge onto this highway together except now with more traffic. He sticks closer to me here than he did on the traffic-free highway. About five miles to go to brother's house.

I started speeding up in the left lane and then moving to the right lane and slowing down. He continues his synchronized lane changes at a very close distance. Okay, I'm almost certain this guy is actually following me now. Brother lives off the highway pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to lead someone to his house, even if they just wanted to hand me a pamphlet on planting trees.

Honestly if I was driving any of my cars or my old Miata I would have loved to have him try and tag along on some familiar back roads. (Not that I condone such driving in the public.) But a 300,000-mile Suburban and wife in the passenger's seat meant I just wanted this guy gone.

The exit before my brother's exit has an extremely long exit lane, ending in a simple 90-degree turn-off. I stick with the right lane as long as I think I can, make sure no one is exiting around me and then make a dramatic dive to the exit lane and brake about as hard as I'm comfortable in the truck. Wife wakes up (oh yeah, she was asleep for all of this.) Upon witnessing my move, Mr. VW flips his right turn signal on and dives on the brakes to follow but doesn't have enough room to get behind me because he was following so close. He then starts to pass me moving very slowly in the right lane as I approach my turn. HA! Foiled Mr. VW man! As he passes I make it very obvious that I am looking at him. Can't make out anything in the VW.

We continue on down our merry way through backroads and reach brother's house with his chairs. All is well and I have an interesting story to tell.

But my curiosity is absolutely peaked by what went down. I want to know what he wanted. Surely no one would follow me close to an hour to say they liked the American flag PRS sticker on the back of the truck. We didn't make any stops on the trip where I might have forgotten a phone or wallet. Thoughts? Hypothesis? Was this guy just trying to bug me or was he the worst tail of all time?

Perhaps it was Dirk Gently.

Hypermiling creeper?

Maybe he was looking for my neighbors house?

In reply to DrBoost:

Haha! It's a possibility.

In reply to Streetwiseguy:

Maybe ed looked like he knew where he was going!

Streetwiseguy wrote: Perhaps it was Dirk Gently.

You are my hero.

Wait, I have a late model blue Passat......

I haven't been to Maryland in the past year though.

it's stuff like this that makes me want to put the solid steel off-roading bumpers on my Disco.

Glad you ditched them though. That is a scary story.

Dusterbd13 wrote:

Streetwiseguy wrote: Perhaps it was Dirk Gently.

You are my hero.

I have to admit, I amused myself with that...

Maybe GRM should add caltrops to the web store.

Let's see...2-hour drive...Cambridge is halfway...I'm an hour from Cambridge...

Where are my chairs?

Yeah, there are some weirdos on our little "peninsula."

Would have been fun to outrun him on the back roads I'm sure, but glad you lost him. That is a pretty scary situation.

I had a similar situation on a trip to Florida many years ago. A few guys in a car behind me followed my every move for several hours. I started to make odd movements to see if they followed, and they did.

It turned out that I was moving at a pretty good speed with a large CB antenna (yes that long ago) attached to my car, so they were just tagging along assuming I would slow down if I heard something. When I made an odd movement they assumed I had just heard something on the CB.

Maybe it was the longest he'd driven without the "Check Engine" light on and he was trying to find someone to show.

He was following the wrong Suburban, his buddy is 2 hours away in an identical truck wondering what the heck happened to him.

Streetwiseguy wrote:

Dusterbd13 wrote:

Streetwiseguy wrote: Perhaps it was Dirk Gently.

You are my hero.

I have to admit, I amused myself with that...

I went and downloaded all the dirk gently books to my kindle last night. Forgot how good they were. Thanks again!

Ed Higginbotham wrote: Thoughts? Hypothesis? Was this guy just trying to bug me or was he the worst tail of all time?

Happened to me once driving for 18 or so hours. Chick behind me so close I couldn't see her headlights, went on for hours; then I realized she was eating lunch, texting, playing with the radio. If she paced off me, she didn't have to pay attention or think.

Why drive when you can draft?

That's when you wake up the wife, have her google the closest police station and lead the tailgater to the po-po. Those type usually don't realize where they've been lead, untill they notice they are in a parking lot filled with squad cars.

Or...he was just board, and screwing with you.

Can I tell my weird car chase story here?

Well, I'm going to anyway.

Many years ago, just out of highschool I had a second shift factory type job. I got off work at 3:30 A.M.

On the way home one night I was pulling up to a red light, the was a car in the right lane so I pulled up in the left. The car was sitting about two car lengths back from the line at the light. I was watching in mirror and the driver and passenger both got out of the car and started walking towards me. No one else around so I punched it through the red light and they ran back to their car and started giving chase. I was in an 1980 Bonneville with the anemic 301 and they were in a boxy S10 blazer.

I was going as fast as it would go and came up on a hill, that allowed them to get on my bumper, I slammed the brakes on and they hit me and I punched it again allowing me to have a little bit of a gap. I wasn't going to lose them with the Bonnie, she just didn't have the moves. All I was thinking about was finding a cop somewhere.

I decided to go to main Street, usually there is a cop around there somewhere. The whole town was empty, not a car in sight anywhere I went. And these guys are still glued to my back bumper. I ran up and down main about three times before I decided I needed a new plan.

I turned up the street my brother lives on, it leads out of town. I forgot about the train tracks and got some impressive air, followed by a shower of sparks as she crashed back to earth knocking loose my muffler and tail pipe. The Blazer boys almost lost it trying to avoid my exhaust. That gained me about a half a block of distance on them.

I blew by my brother's house at about 75mph. Just getting to the outskirts of town I saw a police car sitting in the parking lot of a closed gas station. I locked the brakes down, Slid the car around a full 180° and was sitting facing the Blazer boys directly in front of the cop car, they hooked right up the side street next to the gas station.

I sat there shaking from adrenaline for what seemed like a half hour (it was probably 30 seconds or so). No movement or lights from the cop car so I just pulled away. Went to my brother's house and parked the car behind his house well out of sight and slept in his back porch. I only had on street parking at home and didn't want these guys to know where I lived.

I have no idea who these guys were or what they wanted. I quickly sold the car and it was stolen from the guy I sold it to within a week and burned.

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock:

Wow that is way more exciting than my tale!

I think at some point I would have gently pulled over to the side of the road to see if they did also. Then cheerfully approached the window to ask if they were lost...

Either that, or wait until they get out and start walking and then drive away quickly.

I can't imagine what the VW guy was thinking.

The other guys sound like they wanted to hurt Nick, but no clue why.

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock:

How long had you owned the car before this happened? It almost sounds like there may have been some "evidence" inside they were after.

After the fact, I wished that I had somehow asked what they wanted. I hate cliffhangers. But I guess curiosity killed the cat, right?

Even better option: That exit that I lost him on had a brand new traffic circle about 1/8 mile off the highway. If I had known it was there, I would have let him follow and started making revolutions!