Road rage...

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I was driving on the left lane of a 6 lane road (3 lanes each). I usually don't drive in that lane and I was in it only to pass one guy in the middle lane (I guess I forgot to merge back after passing).

I try to maintain 75 at least when driving in the left lane as it's not so polite to have a line of cars behind me. This isn't exactly a very crowded route either and if anyone's from the Bay Area, SR237 is not so packed on the weekends since it cuts through most of the offices. I MIGHT have slowed down slightly since I was admiring our company's new site just to the left of the highway when this Kompressor decides to pass me. Fair enough. I glance at my speedometer and I was still above 70, closer to 75. I noticed that he decided to pass me while effectively riding on the lane line, dangerously close to me. I was certain I was in the middle of my lane so I tried to inch closer to the center divider. He then proceeds to cut me off with little separation between our cars. I'm not too happy. Maybe my 75 was a tad too slow for this lane and this is why I try to get back into the middle, but hey... just pass me. It's not tremendously hard to pass on this highway with sparse traffic.

I guess part of me wasn't happy and I flipped him off. Both my hands were on the steering wheel so it's not like I waved my finger up and down at him. It was a brief "WTF is your problem mang?" kind of thing and I stopped. I guess this was the wrong thing to do because maybe his eyes were GLUED on the rear view mirror. He proceeded to brake check me HARD. Given the little separation we had already I had the itching feeling he was going to do something stupid as I noticed he already let go of his accelerator the second my finger shot up. Within no time I was doing 30mph on the left lane. I wanted just merge out and GTFO of his way or stay far away, but by then there was this one car behind me already, and I figured if I was doing 30 in the left lane it would take about 1 second before he was gonna pass me from the right, so I might as well just ride it out.

He kept me going at 30 - 40mph for a good 10 seconds until he sped up to 60s or so. I was slow to gas back up since I just didn't want to deal with this SOB anymore. Nor did I want to slam into his precious Kompressor worth far more than my aging vehicle.

Lesson of the day: Don't flip people off even if they want to cut you off.

 

[KillerCharlie]

There are crazy drivers on the road. You can either provoke them our drive defensively. You chose the former by giving him the finger. At least you learned your lesson.

 

[Pepsi90919]

you were in the left lane and not passing. you were breaking the law. it doesn't matter if you were going 75 or 175. somebody else got upset.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car. Maybe I stayed in the left lane for 10 seconds too long.

The point is traffic is rather sparse on SR-237 on weekends and I'm sure a lot of Bay Area residents will tell you that.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
The point is traffic is rather sparse on SR-237 on weekends and I'm sure a lot of Bay Area residents will tell you that.

I think THE point is that you are powerless to do anything to protect yourself in the event that YOU do something stupid and provoke someone else who is less stable and more prone to retaliating in violent fashion.

The moment you felt it was your RIGHT to flip the dude off is the moment you should have also asked yourself "is this worth dying over?"

In Texas (Dallas) we have people get shot to death over road rage. Want to guess how much it matters to the folks who are dead as to whether or not they should have been able to do whatever they were doing when they pissed off the wrong person?

If you want to increase your odds of NOT dying a violent death then you better wise-up and learn to eat crow every now and then because there are a LOT of people out there who value their life a lot less than you value your own and they won't think twice about doing 5yrs in prison for killing your ass over a road rage incident.

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car.

lol, what? by definition, "slower vehicles stay right" equals "if you're not passing the guy in the lane to your right, you should be in that lane". passing a previous car? get out of the way. you're as bad as the people that pile up in the left lane when the right lane ends 10 km up the road.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
you were in the left lane and not passing. you were breaking the law. it doesn't matter if you were going 75 or 175. somebody else got upset.

Breaking the law? You're an idiot.

 

[tokie]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
you were in the left lane and not passing. you were breaking the law. it doesn't matter if you were going 75 or 175. somebody else got upset.

Breaking the law? You're an idiot.

Tell that to the cops who give tickets for it. They are particularly sticky about the left last=passing only if it is a young person with a new/learners license.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: DLeRium
In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car.

lol, what? by definition, "slower vehicles stay right" equals "if you're not passing the guy in the lane to your right, you should be in that lane". passing a previous car? get out of the way. you're as bad as the people that pile up in the left lane when the right lane ends 10 km up the road.

I was passing EVERYONE on my right. Like I said it was a sparsely populated road. The minute I notice the GENERAL FLOW of the lane to my right is slower than me I would merge back in. I NEVER EVER drive slower than the general flow of traffic to my right. That is what I consider rude as you mentioned. Now I may not be faster than everyone who wants to drive in my lane wants to drive at, but so long as I'm faster than the guys on my right, that's fine. Now if someone wants to pass me from the right either I'm going to slow or they just want to be speed demons. Sometimes I use that as a sign that I need to merge back in. If I'm doing 80+ in the left and you still want to pass, I'm not merging into the right so you can go 100.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: tokie

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
you were in the left lane and not passing. you were breaking the law. it doesn't matter if you were going 75 or 175. somebody else got upset.

Breaking the law? You're an idiot.

Tell that to the cops who give tickets for it. They are particularly sticky about the left last=passing only if it is a young person with a new/learners license.

I've never seen it but I've seen people get tickets for going 75 mph in the left lane. So, I need to break the law by speeding so I don't break the law by not passing?

 

[spidey07]

The MB was giving you a friendly reminder and you flipped him off.

Get the hell out of the left lane if you are not passing.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: spidey07
The MB was giving you a friendly reminder and you flipped him off.

Get the hell out of the left lane if you are not passing.

He was passing traffic but wasn't going fast enough for Mr. Asshat.

 

[tokie]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: tokie

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
you were in the left lane and not passing. you were breaking the law. it doesn't matter if you were going 75 or 175. somebody else got upset.

Breaking the law? You're an idiot.

Tell that to the cops who give tickets for it. They are particularly sticky about the left last=passing only if it is a young person with a new/learners license.

I've never seen it but I've seen people get tickets for going 75 mph in the left lane. So, I need to break the law by speeding so I don't break the law by not passing?

Yes. If someone is going 95 on the freeway in the right-lane, and you want to pass, you obviously need to go faster temporarily to pass so you can go the 100 limit in the right-lane.

ETA: I am talking in km/h of course, the civilized man's measurement

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: spidey07
The MB was giving you a friendly reminder and you flipped him off.

Get the hell out of the left lane if you are not passing.

He was passing traffic but wasn't going fast enough for Mr. Asshat.

MB was able to pass on the right. That means there was plenty of room to move over.

There is nothing worse than some yahoo doodling in the left lane going 70-75. So yeah, he wasn't going fast enough to effectively pass.

 

[mugs]

I try to maintain 75 at least when driving in the left lane as it's not so polite to have a line of cars behind me.

It's not polite to have ANY cars behind you in the left lane.

Lesson of the day: Don't flip people off even if they want to cut you off.

The whole situation would have been avoided if you were aware of your surroundings and moved over when you saw a car coming up behind you (or when you were done passing the car on your right - if there was room for the guy to pass you on the right, then there was plenty of room for you to move over until you came up to the next car)

 

[Lithium381]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car. Maybe I stayed in the left lane for 10 seconds too long.

The point is traffic is rather sparse on SR-237 on weekends and I'm sure a lot of Bay Area residents will tell you that.

yep 237 is pretty easy going on weekends! i almost had a fenderbender w/ someone on 87 the other day on the merge from 280......i'd have let them hit me buy the car is only three weeks old(to me) my old car would have been a different story since they'd have been at fault.....jerks wouldn't let me over when it was 2 lanes going into one, i had to push myself in as not to end up in another (faster / separated) lane they weren't happy about that so they passed me on the shoulder and almost hit me on the way back in to which i replied with my horn, then i got the passengers finger for no less than three minutes while we were in traffic(bumper to bumper) i should have written down his plate

edit - goodness people.....he's already doing 10 OVER the speed limit, he states his intention was to pass, he wasn't one of those people trying to uphold the speed limit in the left lane.....the guy in the MB is a dick

 

[sygyzy]

I can't believe I had to read a novel for a story that could have been told in two sentences.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car. Maybe I stayed in the left lane for 10 seconds too long.

The point is traffic is rather sparse on SR-237 on weekends and I'm sure a lot of Bay Area residents will tell you that.

Fvck, I can't count the number of dickheads I see on a daily basis camping out in the left lane going within 10mph of the posted speed limit...which is what everyone else is doing in the multiple free lanes to their right.

The right lanes have become the fast lanes here. It's annoying as hell but it's reality. If you are tooling along in the left lane at the same speed as traffic to your right then my advice to you would be to move the hell over and stop impeding traffic.

Just give an "I'm sorry" wave as you move over in the future and try not to get pissed off.

 

[skyking]

It does not matter that the OP camped a bit or lingered in the left. It's not that big a deal. He likely did not mean to, unlike the 60MPH a-holes who NEVER EVER drive in the right lane.
The guy who passed, cut him close, then brakechecked down to 30 is totally in the wrong and could have caused all sorts of mayhem behind him.
Fortunately guys like that don't live as long as the cooler headed ones

 

[Whisper]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: DLeRium
In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car.

lol, what? by definition, "slower vehicles stay right" equals "if you're not passing the guy in the lane to your right, you should be in that lane". passing a previous car? get out of the way. you're as bad as the people that pile up in the left lane when the right lane ends 10 km up the road.

I was passing EVERYONE on my right. Like I said it was a sparsely populated road. The minute I notice the GENERAL FLOW of the lane to my right is slower than me I would merge back in. I NEVER EVER drive slower than the general flow of traffic to my right. That is what I consider rude as you mentioned. Now I may not be faster than everyone who wants to drive in my lane wants to drive at, but so long as I'm faster than the guys on my right, that's fine. Now if someone wants to pass me from the right either I'm going to slow or they just want to be speed demons. Sometimes I use that as a sign that I need to merge back in. If I'm doing 80+ in the left and you still want to pass, I'm not merging into the right so you can go 100.

Honestly, if someone else on the road wants to drive 100mph, it's not your job to slow them down, and they are doing the right thing by being in the left lane. If you're in the left-most lane and there's someone behind you who wants to go faster, get over. Simple as that.

That being said, the benz brake-checking you down to 30 on a freeway was a d!ck, plain and simple. You flicking him off wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but it's understandable given the situation, and didn't warrant the reaction it received. However, now you'll likely think twice before doing so again, and as others in the thread have mentioned it might end up saving your life sometime.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Whisper

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: DLeRium
In CA it says slower vehicles stay right. There is no law in CA saying it's passing ONLY. I was passing a previous car.

lol, what? by definition, "slower vehicles stay right" equals "if you're not passing the guy in the lane to your right, you should be in that lane". passing a previous car? get out of the way. you're as bad as the people that pile up in the left lane when the right lane ends 10 km up the road.

I was passing EVERYONE on my right. Like I said it was a sparsely populated road. The minute I notice the GENERAL FLOW of the lane to my right is slower than me I would merge back in. I NEVER EVER drive slower than the general flow of traffic to my right. That is what I consider rude as you mentioned. Now I may not be faster than everyone who wants to drive in my lane wants to drive at, but so long as I'm faster than the guys on my right, that's fine. Now if someone wants to pass me from the right either I'm going to slow or they just want to be speed demons. Sometimes I use that as a sign that I need to merge back in. If I'm doing 80+ in the left and you still want to pass, I'm not merging into the right so you can go 100.

Honestly, if someone else on the road wants to drive 100mph, it's not your job to slow them down, and they are doing the right thing by being in the left lane. If you're in the left-most lane and there's someone behind you who wants to go faster, get over. Simple as that.

That being said, the benz brake-checking you down to 30 on a freeway was a d!ck, plain and simple. You flicking him off wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but it's understandable given the situation, and didn't warrant the reaction it received. However, now you'll likely think twice before doing so again, and as others in the thread have mentioned it might end up saving your life sometime.

Exactly. If you are impedding traffic at 80, then get the hell over and get out of the left lane. See those cars behind you flashing and honking at you? That means GET THE HELL OVER@!