Why? Because she's a rude dumbass. But in her mind, she sure showed you.

A few weeks ago I was driving to Chicago, pretty early in the morning. Tooling along in the right lane, going maybe 10 miles over the speed limit. Almost no other traffic. A guy in a pickup truck came flying up behind me, rode my bumper for about half a mile, then whipped around me and blazed away. Not five miles later, I passed him as he'd been stopped by an Ohio State trooper. Immense satisfaction!

Eventually the same thing will happen to your friend Bright Lights, Dim Brain.

It has happened to me worse -- I've been driving in the left lane on a four-lane road doing 35 or 40 in a 35 mph zone and had a person driving behind me whip around me on the right, pull in front of me, and immediately slam on his brakes to make a left-hand turn, making me SLAM on my brakes as well. Of course he could've just sat behind me for another .75 seconds and THEN made his left turn. This has happened to me more than once. It's perverse. I'm sorry and a little shamed to admit that you wouldn't believe what I could do to a person like that if this were a world without consequences.

As a cyclist, one behavior I've noticed, whether in a car or on the bike, is that people will come right up on my tail, slow down to my speed, follow me a while, then change lanes and pass me. I will watch them approach and see that they have ample opportunity to change lanes, but it doesn't even occur to them to look until they have to hit their brakes.

Morons.

She might have been looking for the turn.

Unlikely, because then she wouldn't have been tailgating so much, but sometimes it's nice to try and find a reasonable explanation for ppl's dumbarsery. Makes me feel better.

I was driving in the left lane of a two-lane freeway on Friday, using cruise control so that I was at a constant speed, and a car was tailgating me, so I pulled over into the right lane. The car passed me, and I pulled back into the left lane, again using cruise control, because I was going faster than most of the cars in the right lane. The car that passed me immediately slowed, then changed into the right lane. I passed it, using the cruise control. It changed lanes so that it was behind me, and then started tailgating me again. I declined to go through the whole charade again, so it eventually passed me on the right just in time to move back into the right lane to exit the freeway.

This entire time, I was going the exact same speed, except when slowing down to move over and let the car pass.

So, my conclusion is: Some people are just really dumb. And/or so super-competitive that they MUST WIN at whatever irrational contest they have decided you are participating in with them.

And/or so super-competitive that they MUST WIN at whatever irrational contest they have decided you are participating in with them.

Yes. It's a very serious sickness. Particular to humans, at that.

What did the blockquotes thingy just do?

ha HA! You got reverse block-quoted! That means I win! ;-)

You quote-blocked when you tried to block-quote...

Hmm. I had no idea why she might flash her lights other than to ask to pass... oh well, random idiot. (I checked my back seat to see if she was trying to tell me there was a serial killer in my car. Nobody there.)

There's something here that some idiot drivers do which has happened to me a few times. I've been driving at the speed limit and had people tailgating me, then, when they've overtaken, they've immediately slammed on their brakes, presumably in an attempt to make me hit them from behind (so, theoretically 'my fault', thus big payout from my insurers for them).

After this happened the first couple of times to me, I learned to really slow down as they passed, or pull over, so no satisfaction for them.

It amazes me how many drivers take huge offence at other drivers obeying the speed limit.

She was on a booty call. Best explanation I can think of.

It amazes me how many drivers take huge offence at other drivers obeying the speed limit.
Yeah, this. I'm pretty considerate about letting people pass even if they are speeding, but some people just don't get it. I see this sort of behaviour on my daily commute regularly and had a classic example a couple of months ago - I was driving exactly on the speed limit (cruise control engaged, using GPS for speed) in the right-hand lane (that's the fast lane here) of four lanes with all four lanes well and truly occupied. A Nissan X-Trail came flying up behind me doing at least 20 km/h over the speed limit, sat right on my bumper and immediately started flashing his headlights at me, waving his fist etc. There was no way I could move over, due to the heavy traffic, which would be obvious to even the most dim-witted observer. I employed my usual tactic of tapping the brake pedal lightly with my left foot, which sent him into a panic - he obviously slammed the brakes on and nearly ran off the road, then came up even closer behind me, still flashing his lights. As soon as a break came up in the lane next to me, I put my indicator on to move over, but he dived across into the gap (without indicating) and came up beside me shouting and waving fists etc, then cut across in front of me and slammed his brakes on. I was pretty much ready for that, so it was no drama for me. He then accelerated to sit behind the next car ahead (about two car lengths in front) and started again with the same behaviour.

The best part is that I knew (and he obviously didn't) about the fixed speed camera about a kilometre down the road ;-)

I had to roadtrip from Texas to upstate New York and back last weekend, and for those who weren't aware, there've been kind of a lot of tornadoes and things recently which have led to even more areas of roadwork and construction than is usual for May (which is roadwork season in the US anyway).

So I'm in Chattanooga and the traffic is really heavy plus pulled down to two lanes out of four because of roadwork or something, and I'm behind a bunch of tractor-trailers which are going about 45 miles per hour, so I too am going about 45 miles per hour because if I went any faster I would need to have Kitty Pryde's amazing phasing powers in order to drive through the tractor-trailers in front of me, the huge tractor-trailers that you can absolutely see over me because I'm driving a frickin' Honda Civic which is not a large car that blocks anyone's vision of a TRACTOR-TRAILER

(pause for breath)

Anyway so I'm in that situation and this dude in a like Rav-4 or something similar comes SCREAMING UP THE INTERSTATE BEHIND ME like he's playing chicken with my ass and I'm freaking out because I am BEHIND TRACTOR-TRAILERS AND THERE IS NOWHERE FOR ME TO GO and he shows NO INTENTION of slowing down at all and I start tapping my brakes frantically so my brake lights would inform him that no, dude, slow down, seriously, you are going to rear-end me at like 80 per while I'm behind a tractor-trailer, and he waits until the absolute last moment to slam his brakes and finally slows down to follow me so closely that I can not see his headlights, which is DEFINITELY FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY

AND THEN HE FLIPS ME OFF

because I had obviously decided to go 45 mph of my own accord just to inconvenience him and I was making the tractor-trailers forming a rolling roadblock in front of me go 45 mph as well with my psychic mind powers because I am a Mental Organism Designed Only For Moderately Inconvenience People On The Highway, or MODOFMIPOTH if you're nasty

and that was a full week ago and I'm still mad about it because I seriously thought I was going to get rear-ended and shoved under a semi and decapitated or something.

And then the guy got off at a left exit less than a mile down the road.

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Canada. The mister and I went to Kamloops up the Coquihalla Hwy. People know cops are more apt to be about on long weekends. There were three spots where they pulled over people who had just passed us. At the last spot, I'm guessing that the other drivers didn't notice the traffic helicopter over-head, tsk tsk.

And just about everything y'all have written above has happened to me at least once. People are assholes. Present company excluded, of course. :-)

Yeah, I think everyone has those stories. Thanks for sharing them with me! I really hate the assholes who go slow and then you start to pass them, so they suddenly speed up, and then they're in your blind spot. That is incredibly dangerous if the passing car is in the oncoming traffic lane. I've had it done to me twice. The first time they were obviously screwing with me because we got to the stop sign in the middle of nowhere and they just sat there. It was late at night and I'm no idiot - I stopped several hundred feet back and turned around. The second time, I was on a divided highway and the car proceeded to do the same thing to the next car that tried to pass, but this time the asshole veered into the passing lane as well, and the passing car was forced off the road into the median, at which point I dialed 911. The police stopped and talked to them and told me they knew this guy well, he had done this before. I don't like to call the police but I seriously thought they were going to cause a bad accident.

I am still fried about when I went to Chicago in January and was downtown... I was about to make a right turn but the block I was turning onto was completely full and had I turned, I would have hit a car. So these 5 women on the corner see me stop and start to just blindly walk out in front of me, when they realize I still have a green light and start yelling in obnoxiously high-pitched voices, "WHY ARE YOU STOPPING?!" I yelled back "BECAUSE THERE IS A CAR THERE THAT I WILL HIT!" Sheesh.

(Re the first time... after I tried to pass them and they sped up, then we got to the stop sign and they just sat there.)

I'm surprised no one has shot me yet. If you tailgate me, I slow down. I don't mind driving 30 MPH. Really. I don't. I'll drop it even lower if you start honking or flashing your lights. We can crawl along at 15 feet per year for all I care, buddy. But if you back off and drive like a Less Foolish Person, I'll speed back up! See? Good behavior is rewarded! I know it blows your goddamn mind that there are people who actually obey the posted speed limits, and I'm sure it's a terrible inconvenience to get behind one, especially when you've decided to make that 45-minute cross-town trek in 30 minutes, but guess what? TOUGH SHIT. PLAN BETTER. Leave your house on time for once.

What I really hate is driving on the interstate where you are FORCED to speed, lest you endanger yourself and others.

Actually I just kinda hate driving, come to think of it.