Idiot!

Oh be thankful he did not stop like the truck behind me did a while back. In my case, he actually got out (abandoning his truck in traffic lane) and proceeded towards me brandishing a tire iron!

Fortunately, the light turned green and I was gone well before he returned to his truck.

And again, no cops.......

 

I hear you, buddy! Happens to me all the time too. Although I leave out the finger part....don't want to get shot at. I think just catching up with them and having them notice is better revenge.

One of the problems with the SUVs is that you feel you are going slow (heaven forbid you should look at your speedometer!)

I found that switching from my rattling hard-suspension V8 1989 Mustang to my smooth, tight Prius makes me drive faster than I used to. I am always surprised at how fast I am going.

 

Sorry but I don't agree with you guys. You never know if there is a legitimate reason the person needs to get by. You weren't paying attention to your rear view mirror (not good) since you didn't see him drive up on you. You gave him the finger because he was in an SUV! That helps. Would you have done the same if it was a Prius behind you? Someone wants to pass pull over (if you can safely) and don't judge him by what kind of car he is driving. There seems to be a real Prius vs the SUV mentality here that seems rather odd given how highly educated (according to another thread) Prius drivers are suppose to be.

 

First of all, there's no excuse for driving recklessly.

There's a time and a place to pass someone on a road, and there's usually a courteous and safe way to do it.

People who tailgate you, honk their horn and insist you yield to them are a stone's throw from driving recklessly in my book, regardless of what kind of car they are driving, and there's no excuse.

I don't give a hoot about what's going on in their lives. They're pissed off, they're busy, they're having a bad day and they just want to go wherever they're going in a hurry... but I'm not going to let someone driving aggressively project those bad feelings onto me. I'll go about abiding by the rules of the road, driving the car in the safest way I see fit... if they blow by, more power to them. they're only increasing their own risk of an accident.

 

Agreed - no excuse for that kind of behavior. There are special kind of vehicles that have a "legit" reason to get by: emergency vehicles. (neener, neener)

There is NO LEGIT REASON to put someone elses life in danger and drive dangerously, tailgate, etc. He was ALREADY doing 10 over the speed limit for cryin out loud. I would treat that person in the same manner even if they were driving a Prius, but I'd be awfully disappointed that a Prius owner would be such an nice person.

Wreckless, careless, and agressive driving is illegal in all 50 states the last time I checked and is not authorized for ANY reason. And with the sound of it, that SUV driver may have been border-line road rage, which brings very severe penalties.

on the other hand, as for not seeing him in the rearview....tsk, tsk

 

I actually got some SUV'r honking and yelling at me for going too slow in a PARKING LOT :blink: I mean how fast over the posted speed of 5 MPH are you suppossed to go. It never occured to me tha going between 2-3 times the posted speed would be too slow. Guess he couldn't live going 15 HPH... had to go 30.

And ohh yeah... right after he ripped by me, he almost locked up his breaks because he wanted to take the speed bump nice and easy in his pricy SUV :lol:

Has nothing to do with what you dirve (I was in an MX-6 that day), but who they are. Kinda guy that probably beats his dog for being excited that he's home.

 

I have to disagree with you. I am an Obstetrician and have more than once (a week) had to get to the hospital quickly. I admit when I was younger that I drove too fast but I have learned that driving over the speed limit and going through red lights only endangers others and myself but does not get me there much sooner. I have a good excuse, and have been stopped and escorted to the hospital with out tickets but I now drive the speed limit and stop at stop lights. I do admit to going through a few at 3am but not before looking both ways twice. I just never got me there much quicker. I have even seen a few wrecks of cops, ambulances, and fire trucks over the years that still had their lights and sirens going. If they can't do it safely with all of that no one can.

 

I still stand by what I said. You don't know why the guy behind you is driving the way he is (doesn't matter if you think it's a good reason or not). Driving the speed limit or say 10 mph over and to take it upon yourself to regulate the traffic behind you, doesn't make sense to me. It is always safer to let the guy behind you get by you as quickly and safely as possible, regardless of the speed involved, IMO. Inattention to traffic around you is far worse because if affects all driving conditions all the time, not just speeding. We seem to have more of a problem with the street racers (Hondas, Acuras, Mazdas, etc.) These guys will blow by you doing 100mph in 60mph traffic. When I see them coming in my rear view mirror I move over or at least not make any sudden moves so they get by me. Would you suggest I move into thier lane and slow them down to the legal limit? A better use for your finger would be to call 911 and report the reckless driver, that's what I do. Hacking your review mirror so you can't see the driver as well as you could doesn't seem like a good idea. What happens if the guy behind you forgot to turn on his headlights and you decide to change lanes and can't see him? I'm sure there has been times a doctor needs to get to the hosiptal asap. But if the patient is already there waiting at least you know they have emergency help available to them. If they are also on the way, you can't do anything until they get there anyway. If my wife is in the car with me having a baby, or some other emergency, it seems I can go faster than the speed limit safely and not recklessly. After all 10 mph over (30% higher BTW) is fine with the first poster. How long would it take an ambulance to have gotten by since you didn't see the SUV come up or hear him honk at first? Because you are traveling at the legal limit doesn't automatically make you a safe driver, and traveling faster than the limit doesn't automatically you an unsfe driver.

 

So tailgating is ok with you? I don't think there's any way you can spin tailgating except the guy was a jerk.

No one ever said that driving at the limit is safer than speeding. It depends on the driver, but what you fail to recognize is aggressive driving is bad for everybody.

Edit: Upon reading the first post again, he mentioned he was on a side road. Probably not a second lane to turn into, and the dividing line was probably solid, so it wouldn't have been legal to pass.

What did the SUV driver want? What would you have done differently? Would you have accelerated up to 50 MPH just so the guy behind you isn't pissed off? Would you have pulled over into the dirt so he could pass?

No... the only reasonable thing to do is to ignore the guy.

 

Tailgating is bad. I'm not defending or spinning reckless driving. Do you consider inattentive drivers reckless? In hindsight the poster knew he was tailgating recklessly but not when he first approached. I said he should pull over safely if he could in my first post. I have pulled over to let aggressive drivers by (even in the dirt if that's the case), I like to let them by if I can. What would he have done if a ambulance had to get by? I'll pull over now and let this thread pass by me.

 

I think an ambulance or any kind of first responder is a little higher on the priority list than a jerk off driver. In fact, it's not legal to ignore the former, but perfectly legal to ignore the latter.

I don't change my driving habits too much for aggressive drivers. I certainly won't stay in the fast lane on a highway if i'm only going to be doing the limit, and i'll get out of the way if i see someone coming in much faster, that's common sense, but to pull off to the side of the road and stop for a jerk off, that's a little too much.

I say, keep driving normal, and maybe the guy behind you will cool down and not run into a tree at 70 MPH when his car goes out of control.

 

You are lucky the moron did not have a gun and shoot at you. You have to be careful nowadays.

 

yesterday I was on the way homw from work when a yukon cut me off and slammed on the brakes. so i slowed down to the point where the electric motor was present only. after about 5 min of following him he turned onto the highway and I had to go the same way to get home, once we got on he floored it to about 65-70 so I floored it too in my ferocious prius lol I heard a loud roar from his engine... or was it mine lol its NASCAR, so after about 2 min of following him at about 75 ....a blue 04 prius pulls up next to me! lol
i dont know what was up with mr.yukon but he pulled in front of the blue prius and hit the brakes while she was trying to pass him sh slammed on her brakes and pulled in behind me. then i accelerated ahead of the yukon and slammed on the brakes lol the driver was flipping me off OF course i didn't do anything b/c i dont want to get in trouble for anything else. so after about 5 min of me and the blue pri holding the denali in place a cop came up in his guzzling crown vic and pulled over the denali. I followed to see what was going on so did the blue pri, so we all got out of our cars, in the blue pri was a woman about 5'3 the yukon a 19 year old 6'0 lol
so we all went over to the cop car and the lady started talking to the cop. then she introduced herself to me, she was an off duty cop!
so the guy in the denali got a ticket for speeding and a DWI lol well he got arrested...... PRIUSES WORK TOGETHER!!!! p.s i got a speeding ticket but it was released b/c i was defending myself lol!

 

There are two kinds of idiots on the road. The guy who's swerving in and out of lanes to only end up 1 car ahead or behind you after 25 miles, and there is the guy trying to get 53mpg on his prius while driving a politically correct 1mph +- the speed limit in a traffic pattern that is 10 to 15mph over.

That prius idiot is as dangerous or more dangerous than the weaver.

Good news.. On the chicagoland toll/expressways, the weaver will more likely live to see next year than the idiot in the small car driving 10 under the speed of traffic. Once you're dead, you can smile all you want about how right you were.

Idiots.

Drive smarter, not correcter.

Good luck.

And on a final note. If this is the reputation that Prius on the road gets, people are going to be angry at every prius, not just you who drive stupid. So, you're giving us all a bad wrap.

Doesn't have to be a prius either. There was a guy a couple days ago in a BMW being 'correct'.. he was a good 10 under traffic flow. It causes a mess on the tollway, and I hope he flipped over before he got home. He can rest up in the hospital knowing he was right.

 

The title of this thread makes me smile because it seems that often times the posters are as much the idiot as is the subject of the post.

If someone comes up behind you and driving recklessly and honking his horn, he's obviously worked up. How dumb is it to piss him off some more? The safest thing to do is to get out of his way so he can pass you in a reasonably safe way and then if he does get into an accident later, it won't be with you. The vigilante behavior written about earlier is unsafe and immature.

I also don't agree that people who drive the speed limit are idiots. Speed limits are laws and they are obeying those laws. If you don't believe that the laws are correct then you should try to get them changed. Some people take laws seriously and they should not be faulted for that.

Sure there are lots of idiot drivers out there, but I think the real challange is to handle them in a mature way and not let them take you down to their level.

 

Hi daronspicher,

I drive the Chicagoland highways too. I rarely see a small car with a large gap (1/4 mile or more) to the next traffic in the fast lane (unless its in one of the many construction zones we have now). On the drive home, during the longest continuous portion of the drive, I usually drive in the fast lane. A large vehicle - usually a mini-van or full-sized pickup truck, but also the really large SUV's usually has a large gap in front of it. The small cars tend to keep up with traffic these days. This pattern has changed in the last 6 months, however. Previously, all the large vehicles in the fast lane would tailgate everything in front of them. The Prii I see are in the center lane and matching traffic. I am not in a Prius yet, but am driving a small car.

This past weeks friday drive home was quite bad. Must have been an alignment of the planets. Friday drives home are always the worse! After reaching the tollway it was stop and go, and the other tollway I transit to was also bad due to an accident according to the radio, so I got off. The state route 2/4 lane highway was normal, but there was a weaving SUV. To get away from that situation, I did a little detour. When I came back on the state route, there was a big traffic jam. As I came around a curve to a traffic light, the intersetion was blocked off by police. An accident had just happened apparently, and there were was a different SUV on its side, at 45 degrees to the road. Looked like it had hit the center curbing at high speed, flipped and tumbled. Traffic was being shunted off to the perpendicular road. This intersection was right past the ramp on the second tollway where the radio had reported an accident. The traffic was stop and go on the tollway too.

This experience is counter to your comments. The SUV ended up severly crashed, and the Prii I see are all keeping up with traffic. Granted, one probably can drive 53+ mph style on Chicagoland tollways this year and still be in the center lane and staying caught up with traffic (especially on fridays!), and the SUV was on a four lane state route, not an expressway. I do see on averge one rolled over SUV on the expressways a week, however.



I have to agree with some of your conclusions, even though your observations are counter to my experience. In Chicagoland, its the driving results that count, not the politcal or legal correctness , it seems. If you drive to keep the flow moving, and cooperate with the other people on the road, that seems to be the safest.



One exception to that driving philosophy right now are the construction zones. Its not possible to drive 65 mph through a construction zone with safe regards to the workers, or yourself and its not safe to drive at 45 mph (the posted limit) through these zones with a bunch of SUV's tailgating and weaving around you either. If a SUV tips over while weaving and accellerating, it can roll into a worker and kil the worker just as dead as somebody who wanders off the road because they are going to fast for a road without a shoulder. The only real solution is to legally cripple the right of trucks (including SUV's) to go faster than cars, and enforce it. This is how it used to be in the US, and how it should be again.

I do not think one can classify all drivers into the two generalities you make, however. The whole jist of yours and my coments is that there are always exceptions to any rule or law to comply with the spirit of the rule or law. And to make a rule that drivers fit into generalistic clasifications is folly.

P.S. I see somebody doing 100 + in a boy-racer modified oriental car in the right (slow lane!) about once a month. And while scarry, have never seen one in an accident. The last time I was almost killed on the drive home was when a SUV came across the double white lines of an exit it had missed, while yapping on the cell phone with a 1/2 vehicle overlap, and a line of cars behind me (and previously the SUV). Luckily my car was narrow enough that the SUV and it could fit side-by side in the lane, or I would have been shunted into a bridge support, or squashed by the SUV. Remarkably, even after this happened, the guy in the SUV kept yapping on the Cell Phone!!! I would find if my actions almost resulted in somebodies' severe injury or death, I would modify those actions!

 

it that attitude born of plenty and cheap that is the problem here. i saw a news blurb entitled

"Disasters expose the nations lack of policy to protect consumers from high gas prices"

iow, someone thinks we are ENTITLED to cheap gas. never mind that nearly everyone else in the world is paying twice what we currently pay and have done so for years. and what difference does it make why the gas is higher? our gas matches our agenda and that is consume until there aint no more.

breaking the law... ya speed limit is a law and that is maximum speed limit. not minimum speed limit like most seem to think, is breaking the law. speeding uses more gas, and that is something we need to take a long hard look at. i hope gas is $5 a gallon. if it makes everyone slow down, its more than worth the money. for one thing, the accident rate will be lower and the money we save on NOT paying hosipital bills for others will more than offset the cost of driving.