pudge's Journal: Road Rage

OK, three stories.

Once, I was turning right onto the freeway on-ramp, and was behind a bunch of cars, and other cars were coming across the road from the other direction into the same on-ramp, taking a left across our side of the road.

So all the cars on both sides are merging. I merge just like all the other cars did, and the car from the other direction goes up on the curb around me. I move out of his way so I don't get hit, and lay on my horn for several seconds. The dude stops and gets out of his car and yells at me about yielding. I yell something back about merging. He keeps yammering and tell him to get his ass back in his car. He obeys my command and drives off.

Another time, I was in the fast lane on the freeway (three or four lanes going our direction) at commute time and a minivan is tailgating me. I tap on the brakes. They back off. Happens again. I tap again, he backs off. There's some room for him to go around if he really wants to, but I am not speeding up because all the traffic in front of me is going my speed, and I am not pulling over because that is stupid, because ... all the traffic in front of me is going my speed.

So he does it again, and this time, he is a mere few inches from me. He obviously wants to screw with me. He is too close, really, for me to attempt tapping my brakes this time. So ... I take my foot off the gas. If he won't back off, I will slow down to a speed safe enough for his distance (I could change lanes, but then he will just do it to the car in front of me; I won't put another driver in that sort of danger). Pretty soon we're going about 45, down from 65 or 70, and he finally backs off. I speed up. He does it again. I slow down again. This time we are going 25 before he decides he is done playing and he whips his van around me. Oddly, he decides to drive safely from here on out. I think I scared him straight.

I decide I am going to mess with him and I follow him. I stay in his lane. He changes lanes, I change lanes. I keep a very safe distance, sometimes a few cars away. But I stay in his lane. And then I hit the jackpot: he gets off on my exit. And he makes about two or three turns that I need to take. I think he was probably totally freaking out by that point. Finally he turned a direction I was not going, and we parted ways.

OK, last story. Technically not a road rage story, but a meta-road rage story. I got called for jury duty in MA. They have a stupid thing there about wanting diverse juries so they force you to commute to some other courthouse. I could drive 10 minutes away to the local one, or drive over an hour in heavy rush hour traffic. I write in that I can't go to the one they want me to go to because I have road rage. They re-assigned me to my local courthouse. Sweet.

Unfortunately, my jury duty got cancelled, though.

Story 2.

[sr180]

I find that slowing down and swerving all over the lane soon gets the klingons off your arse.

road rage is all the rage

[Bill Dog]

This time we are going 25 before he decides he is done playing and he whips his van around me.

It's at this point where I downshift and floor it and roar away from him. After he's gotten out of my lane. So I rub it in by then speeding up, what he wanted in the first place. But didn't get. Ha ha ha. Yes, I react oh so maturely to raging idiots on the road.

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[pudge]

This time we are going 25 before he decides he is done playing and he whips his van around me.

It's at this point where I downshift and floor it and roar away from him. After he's gotten out of my lane. So I rub it in by then speeding up, what he wanted in the first place. But didn't get.

Oh, yeah, I did that too. But then he kept speeding up and I let him go, and decided to just follow him instead.

Diversity?

[clintp]

When I lived in .ma.us I got called for jury duty and it was out in God-Knows-Where on the other side of the state. (Okay, it's a *small* state, but still a good hour away.) And I wrote back that my car was somewhat unreliable and not suitable for a drive of that distance. Considering that a couple of weeks later the brakes *fell off* the car, I think that assessment was accurate.

By the time they rescheduled me, though I had moved to Michigan. But I wondered why they sent me so far afield for jury duty.

Jury Duty

[johndiii]

I like jury duty, though I've only gotten on a jury once. That was a really interesting experience, and I got to be the foreman. :-)

The last time that I went, I was put on a panel and went up to the courtroom for voir dire for a drunk driving case. The defense strategy became pretty clear when they started asking the panel about their attitudes toward the police and if they would accept the word of a police officer over that of some other person (of course, it depends on the other person, but it was fairl

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[pudge]

I like jury duty, though I've only gotten on a jury once. That was a really interesting experience, and I got to be the foreman.

I've never been. I've been called twice, and the other time I "got out of it" because I was hundreds of miles away at college. I want to do it though.

The last time that I went, I was put on a panel and went up to the courtroom for voir dire for a drunk driving case. The defense strategy became pretty clear when they started asking the panel about their attitudes toward the police and if they would accept the word of a police officer over that of some other person (of course, it depends on the other person, but it was fairly obvious where they were going). I had to admit a positive attitude toward the police. I ended up being struck, but had I not been I would have had to tell them about my uncle who was chief of police in a small town in Wisconsin, my daughter's best friend's father who is chief of police in the city where I live, and my uncle who was killed by a drunk driver. No way that I was going to be able to be honest and get on that jury. :-(

I find such practices in our judicial system reprehensible, personally. A diverse jury means having people with all sorts of predispositions. If someone is incapable of deciding on the facts, because they hate the cops, or hate drunk drivers, that's one thing. But merely being predisposed to finding in favor of cops, or against them, in absence of hard

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[johndiii]

I agree. The fact is that I would have voted with integrity regardless of my predispositions. But that's not what the defense wanted - they were working the system to get a jury that would let the guy off.

It may be a chronic problem. Whenever you try and set up a system that is predominantly fair, a group of people will emerge that try to game the system for their own advantage. The system can never be made perfect, and judges (as a class) are not either. There are things that we could do better in bot

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[Bill Dog]

I would probably normally like jury duty too, but I've only been an alternate, on the one case I was picked for. You have to sit thru the whole case and pay attention, and then you don't get a say in it. Like spending 80 hours studying for an exam that you'll never take.

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[Miguelito]

I like jury duty, though I've only gotten on a jury once. That was a really interesting experience, and I got to be the foreman. :-)

Same here, I do feel it's out duty, and the people that scoff at it and do anything to get out... I like to ask them how they'd feel if they were on trial for something and the only people on the jury were those that couldn't get out of it.

I had a murder trial a few years back. 2 defendants (shooter and driver of getaway car) that was gang-related. Very interesting experience

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[dexterpexter]

No way that I was going to be able to be honest and get on that jury. :-(

Of course, I know someone who worked for the company that was being sued in a case, revealed the fact, and was still chosen to be part of the jury. One would have thought that neither side would have wanted this person on the jury, but yet they remained in what I understand was very uncomfortable circumstances.

My biggest road rage peeve...

[Miguelito]

Is probably the following...
When you either are entering or exiting the freeway and need to merge into the exit lane, or out of the onramp, and there's someone a car length or so behind you in the lane you need to merge into. As soon as you hit your turn signal, they pour on the speed... you can almost hear their attitude, "How dare you try to change lanes in front of me!" So you have to hit your brakes to allow them to pass in time for you to still change lanes. Then, just after you change lanes... they

Prisoner's Dilemma

[jamie]

Well, I guess I'm glad there are people like you who do dangerous stuff to punish tailgaters. Hopefully it will decrease their number, which helps me, and I can continue just ignoring the remainder without having to personally pay the cost of increased danger to myself. Win-win, for me! But unless it was 1 in the morning I'm amazed you didn't cause a pile-up doing 25 in the fast lane on the expressway. Eek.

I found somewhere in my 20s that I was naturally leaving 3 seconds of room at highway speeds, just li

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[pudge]

Some people are just scary/crazy. Since I am relatively large -- and so are my cars -- and I have a relatively intimidating look to me, I think people are much less likely to mess with me. And I sometimes use that to my advantage. :-)

riding the left lane

[tf23]

Sorry Pudge, but if there's "room for him to pass" then *that's* room for you to _not be riding that left lane_. Time of day does not matter. It's a matter of being able to pass, and pass safely. You are supposed to pass *on the left*. By riding that left lane you are ignoring basic driving systems/rules/laws.

The speed limit's the speed limit and whether you are doing less, equal to, or more, does not give you the right to declare that you are allowed to ride that left lane. And comparing your current speed

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[pudge]

Sorry Pudge, but if there's "room for him to pass" then *that's* room for you to _not be riding that left lane_.

You apparently missed the part where I said there was no room in front of me to go any faster. There was no point to getting out of his way; he would just tailgate the next car, and the next ...

Time of day does not matter.

I never said it did.

By riding that left lane you are ignoring basic driving systems/rules/laws.

False. That is only true if I could have gone faster, which I could not. Furthermore, even if I could have gone faster, I refuse to be bullied by tailgating into going faster. Tailgating is far more unsafe and unreasonable than driving too slow in the fast lane (which I wasn't doing anyway)

Just wait until the gun comes out...

[Kymermosst]

Once someone was tailgating me in the fast lane when I was already doing 10+ miles an hour above the speed limit passing some cars on the right. I let off the gas because he was so close. He then got inches-close to my bumper. When he finally got his chance to blow around me, he did so... while pointing a 9MM auto at me out of the window and screaming (presumed) profanities. He did not pull the trigger.

He had a trip permit, he pulled away too fast for me to get all of the digits, but I memorized some de

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[pudge]

Well, now you have two complaints. One is felony assault with a deadly weapon, and the other is the dispatcher's apparent refusal to follow up on a report of felony assault.

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[Kymermosst]

Yeah. However, it was finals week and I was also moving. I didn't follow up (I should have) because I had enough stress about various other things that five seconds of having a gun pointed at me didn't seem like much of an event after a good night's sleep.