I try to be a careful and safe driver. As part of that I do my best to keep my eyes open for people who drive inappropriately. I hate being surprised by dangerous drivers.
This morning, on my way to work on Highway 285 east bound between Santa Fe and Broadway, I noticed a brown Honda SUV weaving in and out of traffic behind me. I watched as the SUV cut off several drivers and could see that it would soon be coming up behind me. As I expected, the driver cut off the car behind me and entered my lane dangerously close to my rear bumper. I noticed that it was a young woman driving the car.
As we went under the Broadway bridge, she remained hard on my bumper, and I could see her looking for an opportunity to cut into another lane to get around me. No such opportunity afforded itself. As we reached the red light past Broadway, I merged into the right hand lane. As I did so, she moved quickly into the lane where I had been, but was unable to pass me due to traffic in that lane. So as I moved forward, she cut in again behind me, right on my tail.
As it happened, just as she was doing that, the light ahead turned orange, at just that wrong time where you have to stop fast, or run the red light. As I hit the brakes to stop, I also looked in my rear view mirror to see if she was paying attention so that if it looked like she would hit me, I could continue forward. She did notice I was stopping, but she became enraged that I did so. Apparently she had assumed that I would push on through the red light, and her intention was clearly to follow as closely as she could.
Because I stopped, she had to stop, and she began gesticulating wildly and yelling at me. After a few seconds of watching her antics, I raised my right hand in a gesture of “what can I do? The light turned red.” This enraged her further and she took out her phone and took a photo of my car. Then she called someone, I presume she decided to pay me back for making her stop by reporting me as an aggressive driver.
So… if this happened to you, what would you do?
10 users commented in " Aggressive driving… "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWell, as for the photo, I wouldn’t worry about it at all.
1) Unless she happens to be a sheriff’s wife or congressman, she can’t do anything with it that will matter.
2) If she happens to be one of the above, and she does something with it, the truth will come out and she’ll be hung by her own rope.
Still, the incident would leave me pretty pissed off. Not much to do be done about that, except to realize that this person will probably run afoul of the wrong person, or the law, eventually. AND keep in mind that this person’s reckless aggression is probably just a symptom of how miserable that person is.
I would have communicated with her non-verbally as well – just differently than you did…
I sent a message to the “aggressive driving hotline” email address saying pretty much the same thing I posted here. I got a response that said they keep all reports in a database by license number and if three separate individuals report someone driving aggressively they will send out a warning. The warning doesn’t have any impact on your driving record or insurance rates, but if after the warning you get flagged again, they begin to look at enforcement options.
Still seems seriously open to abuse if someone really wanted to.
… but I reported her too, so her license should be in the list now… maybe more than once.
Don’t confront (and I’d probably not even gesture, although I’d really want to). There’s no point in getting dead over someone being an idiot, and plenty of these people are armed and idiotic.
Reporting them to a hotline makes sense.
Foo, I agree, I normally don’t even respond, but I was in a particularly bad mood this morning… Last thing I needed was an entitled, self-important b*tch riding my ass and then “reporting” me for stopping at a red light she wanted to run.
The Single Finger Salute is what I usually get when I drive around town. Don’t know why…
Oh yeah…because I obey the traffic laws! In 36 years of driving, I have had exactly ONE ticket (running an orange light at 16), and ZERO wrecks. Interestingly…my three adult sons have a total of two tickets, and ZERO wrecks amongst them in their aggregate 37 years of driving (I guess it’s a genetic thing).
So, fellow driver castigation (is that the right word?) doesn’t bug me one bit. Let ‘em rage on!
As far as I know, we don’t have an aggressive driver deal around here. But if we did, I’d sign up for a lifetime membership!
I find that many SUV drivers tend to like to ride my bumper. The women SUV drivers are the worst, and take the most chances, even though it isn’t limited to them.
I’ve had idiots in commercial vehicles pull crap like that on me, and the idiot part comes from them driving in large vehicles that have phone numbers of their companies on them. I always call in to the company to complain if they are driving like idiots. The company’s reputation is negatively impacted by aggressive driving, never mind that they can and do cause accidents.
The thing about this type of driving is that it may shave a few seconds of time off their trip, but the risk they face is incredible.
I know there are times when I drive a little faster than I should due to being a little late, then I rethink it and realize a couple of minutes later isn’t going to matter, and getting stopped or getting in an accident because of driving stupid will cause me to be far later.
I do enjoy when some fool goes past me, and I end up being right next to them sitting at a light. I just look and smile.
My daily commute includes a 30 mile stretch of mountain highway called Highway 285. It’s a winding road dotted with memorials to those who have failed to negotiate certain turns. There is one spot called “Windy Point” that is a sharp turn in the middle of a steep hill with a couple hundred foot drop off just a dozen feet from the edge of the road.
People go flying past me at 75 or faster every day. The speed limit is 55. I admit it, I frequently cheat up to 60, but that means I spend most of my time in the “slow lane.”
That’s a 30 mile stretch. If I drive 60 and they drive 75 they will gain about five minutes on me (you can’t stay at 75, there are turns that will kill you at 75 if you hit them). That’s on a thirty mile commute.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of those jackass rabbits get to the office and spend the first hour getting coffee, checking news, chatting with coworkers and otherwise frittering their time away.
I certainly don’t see anyone in my office come in balls to the wall and start blasting away on their tasks…
I’ve had several people in law enforcement tell me that the *CSP ‘aggressive driving’ hotline exists as much to help defuse the situation as to actually reprimand the dangerous drivers. ie. It exists to make the reporting driver feel better. The overwhelming majority of reported drivers are not investigated unless they have numerous complaints in the database. That appears to be consistent with what you were told.
You did the right thing, minus the gesturing I guess. Confrontation with aggressive drivers just isn’t worth the risk. But I will admit that if I end up at a red light behind someone who was tailgating me just prior, I’ll sometimes play the ‘how close can I get the front of my Cummins Ram to the back of your subcompact’ game.
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