Nope, not road rage, but the rudeness of other drivers that do things that can lead to road rage. Things like driving on the shoulder to get by a line of traffic, or someone passing a long line of cars waiting to exit a highway only to force his way into line right at the end. The "me FIRST, I have no PATIENCE!!!" sort of person.

Have you ever had someone do this sort of thing to you? How have you reacted?

It looks like some states are considering legislation to curb that sort of behavior:

Legislators target road rudeness

 

Happens all the time here in Toronto, there are 6 million people living the the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). We have major traffic problems.

How do I deal with it? Well, if I am in the S2000 (which is rarely as I don't usually drive it to work) - I take the long way to work . If I am in the Civic or the CRV...I turn up the radio and enjoy the music and watch the Big Rigs deal with them....

 

Have you ever had someone do this sort of thing to you? How have you reacted?


Hey, I live in Boston, home of the rudest drivers in America. Of course I see it...only many times a day. For the most part I disregard it, as life is too short and I don't want my blood pressure to rise. Once in a while I react to it and try to stop the lane moochers, but then I end up putting myself into harms way. The cops are as guilty as others, especially making left hand turns out of a sidestreet onto a busy road. They are always weaseling in instead of waiting for the traffic to subside because they know traffic will stop for them. That's why legislation is a waste of time. The cops can't enforce the current laws, and brekdown lane weasels are already breaking the law.

Why don't our lawmakers actually force drivers to learn how to drive and make us take real tests????

 

Yes, it happens all the time, and there is very little that I'd do about it -- I am not about to hit his car with mine. But what I'd like to do is to shoot the rude driver.

There is no way legislation can help. You cannot legislate politeness. We already have way too many laws in the books and something like this does not need to be added. So although I am mad at the rude drivers, I will not support any kind of legislative action.

 

What can you do?!? Not much except ignore it. If you let it upset you how does that help?

Get a better stereo system and learn to live with it.

Write down their licence plate and send it to the highway patrol. In CA they actually follow up on it if people are driving dangerously.

Start pressuring your legistators to fund more road and highway improvements!

 

No more laws! We have more than enough. Enforce what we already have!

I ignore rude drivers and get away from the dangerous ones. Life is too short to waste on idiots and nuts.

 

Very timely thread.

My wife and I were talking about this very subject during our morning commute today.

We experience this damn near every day and as each day passes, I find myself becoming increasingly pissed off about it.

We have two major interesections that we need to make right turns at every day on our way to work. Each right hand turn is a protected turn lane but in both instances, a significant portion of the traffic flow needs to get all the way into the left hand turn lane as soon as it completes the protected right hand turn.

The problem is that traffic is heavy.

What is becoming increasingly common is that some self-important jackass decides to come to a complete stop in the protected turn lane and arbitrarily make his/her lane a merge lane so that he/she can get to his next turn when it is convenient for him. Not only does this piss me off because these people decide that their convenience is more important that the rest of the motoring public (ie they could very easily continue on and either make a u-turn or back track but decide its easier to make us wait then have them wait) but most importantly because it's freaking dangerous.

We've seen countless very near misses as people hum along into the protected turn lane only to find that traffice has completely stopped so this ahole can get over and two very bad rear endings because of it. I used to take it in stride. I have occassionally yelled at people and now I'm about to lose it with them.

BTW - I agree with Dana R.

Normally, I'm the last person to ask for more laws but in CA's case, in particular, a chimp could get his driver's license and they need to get real about driver's education and mandatory testing. Driving is a priveledge, certainly not a right. Although there would be a large initial increase in costs, I have to believe that long-term it would be cheaper and better for society as a whole to have real training and testing (a la Germany) than the joke we have here.

Rant over.

 

When I get really steamed by some rude behavior, I flip them the bird, but under the cover of my door. I don't want to get shot!

 

I generally leave lots of room in front of me so people can cut ahead of me. I don't care about that. But sometimes other drivers are really rude or dangerous. In that case, here's what I do:

Commercial vehicle: Call the company & ask for the 'Safety Officer'. explain the situation. So far they have always been very nice to me.

Tailgater: Slow down...speed up...slow down...speed up........without using the brakes. One time a guy tailgating me driving a truck with a $1M portable CAT scanner almost hit the ditch. He was speeding up when I was slowing down.

Rednecks with pickups: Do whatever I got to do to piss them off. Slow down, speedup, lane change, whatever. When they are bright red & yelling at the top of their lungs I hold up me cell phone & pretend to dial 911.

Gangster - If you can see they got guns: Leave them alone.



--Mike

 

Traffic congestion here in New Jersey is among the worst in the nation. As a result we get to see some of the rudest behavior. One of my pet peeves is just the issue that Tom has mentioned, the merge-jumper. Typically, at an interchange from one highway to another the is a delay on the off ramp. Usually, this delay backs up onto the original highway. Most of us sit patiently in the lane and go with the flow of traffic, but some drive up in the middle lane and force their way in at the last moment. This increases the wait for those who don'tmerge-jump.

Another form of rudeness that we have here is tailgating. I don't know why but an increasing number of people feel that they have to be inches away from you at 60 miles per hour. It is frightening knowing that your S2000 can stop in half the distance that the SUV or pickup behind you can. It is especially frightening when you look into the rear view mirror and see this tremendous SUV inches behind and the driver has a cell phone stuck to his/her ear or a cup of coffee in his/her hand.

Without getting into a whole tirade about whats wrong with society, I think one of the fundamental problems is that driving courtesy is not taught as part of the learning to drive experience. The instructors give lip service to it, but afterwards ignore it. My son just completed his 6 hour behind the wheel segment of his permit requirement. I am amazed as I take him out to practice by how little value his instructor put on courtesy. I think if they would teach driving courtesy and defensive driving our roads would be safer and we wouldn't need any more laws.