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I had a scary incident. I was coming back from the beach in WA with my sons, passing through Aberdeen. It was me and 2 little boys in a minivan. I was unfamiliar with the area and approaching a traffic light I realized (no signs were visible until then) that I needed to be in the next lane to the right, to make my turn onto the road I needed.
So I put on my signal, and start waiting for a break in the line of cars passing me to the right. Finally, there was space and it looked as though the next vehicle in the line (a large pickup) had slowed to a crawl to deliberately give me room. There was a good 6-8 car-length, maybe more, space and he was going super slow. As soon as it was clear, I start to edge over behind the last car in the line.
Suddenly there is all this honking and ruckus. I brake and look back and the guy is FREAKING OUT. He has pulled up behind me and he's just losing it.
I should mention at this point, that both his truck and the boat that I can now see he's towing are covered in garish American flag and gold star designs and as he gets out, he's bright red in the face, has Hulk Hogan handle-bar mustaches, a cutoff-T shirt tank top thing (muscle shirt?) and a bandanna on his head.
He comes swaggering up to my window, which was cracked about 3 inches open the whole time, and as soon as he sees I'm a woman he just unloads with the profanity, just calling me all kinds of names and yelling, "DON'T YOU SEE I'VE GOT A BOAT! I CAN'T JUST STOP! I ALMOST RAN YOU DOWN YOU STUPID --- AND I SHOULD HAVE!" and on it went. I just stared at him, eyes huge. I know, I just know that if I'd been male, he would have tried to assault me.
The light changed and I drove off. My son said, "What was his problem?? That was scary." I told them ya know...some people just are full of anger. Did you see the veins bulging out of his head and how red he was? He's going to give himself a heart attack some day.
Thing is...there was a red light with a stack of traffic stopped at it, and he was approaching at a very slow crawl with plenty...PLENTY of stopping space. If he can't stop while towing a boat, why is he even on the road? What was he going to do, just ram his way through the intersection, anyways? And he proved that he actually COULD stop...by stopping! And getting out to scream at me!
When you encounter a "stupid driver" who is maybe going a little too slow, or maybe trying to get over and (horrors!) gets in front of you, assuming they've signaled and there was room...why not be a little understanding? I mean maybe they just don't know the area? I don't get why anyone gets so ragey. You don't get a prize for being "first" instead of "next" in a lane.
Back in the 80's, H and I went to a Renaissance Festival. Lots of fun and very crowded. Everyone somehow decided to leave at the same time and it took us a couple hours to get out of the parking lot. One idiot just couldn't take it anymore and started ramming people, backing up and hitting them again. And there was nothing you could do to get out of the way. It was complete gridlock. We were next in line to be hit when the Sheriff came and hauled him away. We were sitting in the car discussing what to do. We were pretty frantic and scared!
Ive had people get upset at me for not letting them in(honking and flipping me off). I don’t know if it’s considered rude to not let someone in when it’s a busy street and theyre trying to get into a lane. These are the people who see along line of cars and drive up in the second lane and try to get in way up front,(most try and force their way in) if that’s the case I won’t let them in. Wait in line like the rest of us did!! lol I do occasionally let people in and I RARELY get a thank you wave. Im like Seinfeld screaming “Where’s my thank you wave?!”
The worst road rage thing I ever heard of happened to a man who worked at my workplace (large one), I didn't know him personally. He was driving with his teen or young adult son in a pickup. He and another guy in a pickup got into a game of cat and mouse, both raging, after one cut the other off by accident. It went on until the guy who worked at my company tried to exit the freeway and get away from this crazy dude. At the end of the off-ramp was a stoplight. While waiting for the red light to change the crazy guy pulled up behind, jumped out of the truck, and ran up to the truck in front of him and shot the driver, right in front of his son. Then he took off. The guy was almost immediately arrested and then bailed out by family members. The next day after he was bailed out the killer drove to the off-ramp where the murder occurred, pulled over, and shot himself to death.
Two families lives destroyed by totally pointless violence.
Ive had people get upset at me for not letting them in(honking and flipping me off). I don’t know if it’s considered rude to not let someone in when it’s a busy street and theyre trying to get into a lane. These are the people who see along line of cars and drive up in the second lane and try to get in way up front,(most try and force their way in) if that’s the case I won’t let them in. Wait in line like the rest of us did!! lol I do occasionally let people in and I RARELY get a thank you wave. Im like Seinfeld screaming “Where’s my thank you wave?!”
That is actually a very tricky thing, and there's something I didn't know until I met people who had lived in Europe.
In Germany and other parts of Europe, it is the law to "zipper" which means that EVERYONE goes up as far as they can in both lanes and when it's time to merge, you let one car in and then go, and one behind you and then one from your lane, alternating. It's very efficient when everyone knows it's what you're supposed to do, and does it.
Here though, there is no hard and fast rule and many people like you (and I) think that as soon as possible you should be in whatever lane you're supposed to be in. So when you first know you need to merge, don't wait till the last minute. Get over.
Imagine the bafflement of anyone who thinks we're supposed to "zipper"!
So I go by the one-car rule. I will let ONE car in front of me. If they have their signal on. After that, I'm tailgating (slowly) past the merge point and the rest can wait.
The other problem I've seen more in places on the East Coast, when somebody slows to let ONE merger in, people behind him think they can just bully their way in since you were dumb enough to give them the chance. You try to let one in, and wind up with 3-4 trying to ride on up right behind him. As if the traffic jams on I-95 weren't bad enough, no one knows how to drive courteously at all out there...
That is actually a very tricky thing, and there's something I didn't know until I met people who had lived in Europe.
In Germany and other parts of Europe, it is the law to "zipper" which means that EVERYONE goes up as far as they can in both lanes and when it's time to merge, you let one car in and then go, and one behind you and then one from your lane, alternating. It's very efficient when everyone knows it's what you're supposed to do, and does it.
Here though, there is no hard and fast rule and many people like you (and I) think that as soon as possible you should be in whatever lane you're supposed to be in. So when you first know you need to merge, don't wait till the last minute. Get over.
Imagine the bafflement of anyone who thinks we're supposed to "zipper"!
So I go by the one-car rule. I will let ONE car in front of me. If they have their signal on. After that, I'm tailgating (slowly) past the merge point and the rest can wait.
The other problem I've seen more in places on the East Coast, when somebody slows to let ONE merger in, people behind him think they can just bully their way in since you were dumb enough to give them the chance. You try to let one in, and wind up with 3-4 trying to ride on up right behind him. As if the traffic jams on I-95 weren't bad enough, no one knows how to drive courteously at all out there...
If they have their signal on, I let one car squeeze in. If I see no signal and them trying to force themselves in then nope sorry I am not letting you in. We have so much construction going on here in my city that you would think people say "Oh it's almost going to merge into one lane better switch" but they dont. I have seen a bus try and squeeze in and held up traffic for a while because he had a long of line of cars behind him who also tried to sneak in and he blocked them off and there was no space to let a huge bus in.
Ive had people get upset at me for not letting them in(honking and flipping me off). I don’t know if it’s considered rude to not let someone in when it’s a busy street and theyre trying to get into a lane. These are the people who see along line of cars and drive up in the second lane and try to get in way up front,(most try and force their way in) if that’s the case I won’t let them in. Wait in line like the rest of us did!! lol I do occasionally let people in and I RARELY get a thank you wave. Im like Seinfeld screaming “Where’s my thank you wave?!”
Even in a busy area of Houston (Galleria Area), it's generally known to let people in. The freeway entrance at Fountainview is a small one, and cannot accomodate the huge amount of cars trying to jam onto the freeway during rush hour (everyone and their grandmother has moved here as if it's the new Mecca). It's either create a 2nd lane or create gridlock. I'm one that always let people in, and it's usually 2 or 3 cars (I do it for my morning karma LOL) because I know how crappy it is to really have no choice but to be at somebody's mercy......and they let you linger and die by the side like it would have killed them to give up 2.8 seconds of their life to let somebody in.
Even in a busy area of Houston (Galleria Area), it's generally known to let people in. The freeway entrance at Fountainview is a small one, and cannot accomodate the huge amount of cars trying to jam onto the freeway during rush hour (everyone and their grandmother has moved here as if it's the new Mecca). It's either create a 2nd lane or create gridlock. I'm one that always let people in, and it's usually 2 or 3 cars (I do it for my morning karma LOL) because I know how crappy it is to really have no choice but to be at somebody's mercy......and they let you linger and die by the side like it would have killed them to give up 2.8 seconds of their life to let somebody in.
Eh Im in El Paso but Ive been in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio (not Houston.. yet.. going this year for an Astros game) but drivers are totally different. Def more polite.
Oh sure, I learned to drive in Seattle, where traffic can be unreal at times. I learned quickly that in order to get where I needed to go, I had to be assertive. That meant that when I needed to get over, I would get over. Obviously safely, and always planning ahead so that I wasn't skipping across 5 lanes at the last second, but people in big cities are less likely to let you squeeze in, and much more likely to speed up when they see your turn signal on for switching lanes.
More than a couple times in rush hour, stop and go traffic, I've had to switch lanes by essentially just going and forcing a car to stop (always when it was a necessity to get over). That tends to lead people to think you are purposely and specifically trying to ruin their day. More than a few times I've had people move over to another lane just to get up next to me to yell at me.
Once I actually had a woman follow me into the parking lot of a grocery store I was going to, about a mile after the freeway, and she got out, went into the store, and found me to yell at me. I just tried not to smile while saying I was sorry if I offended her, but I honestly was just trying to safely get where I needed to go. Unfortunately (and I fall into this too) people tend to think they are the star of their own movie, and everyone makes their decisions to affect them.
I've been in several over my life. I'll admit I'm not the most patient driver but I treat everyone with respect unless they do something bad to me. I'm one of those drivers that is frustrated a lot with other drivers. Granted it's only a small percentage of drivers that make me frustrated but it makes me hate driving. My most recent incident happened a couple of months ago. A driver was stopped in the middle of a residential street (apartment buildings), no blinker, no indication of turning into a driveway. I was behind him, he didn't move for a few seconds, I honked my horn once, then again. He slowly started to turn into a driveway and I passed him. Next thing I know he's racing after me. We both stop a couple stoplights away with his car parallel to mine (he's on my passenger side). Suddenly he gets out of his car and I instinctively reverse, thinking he'll open my passenger side door. Next thing I know I hit him, as he apparently ran around the back of my car, probably to try to get to my door. He gets up after a few seconds of laying on the ground motionless (which got me scared), we have a few words, then I drive off. The police investigated me for 2nd degree assault and seized my car for evidence. Eventually they decided not to pursue charges, as I had a legitimate concern for my safety and turns out the guy was drunk and couldn't even identify me later (despite all him having to do was say "yes that's him"), although his wife did.
Actually in retrospect it was a positive experience as I learned a few things such as never leave the scene if you hit someone, even if they seem okay. I also found out how expensive lawyers are. Fortunately I didn't shell out any money before they dropped the case. Also learned how to better protect myself legally if such a situation were to arise again.
Am I the only one who drives with their car doors locked?
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