mikeydoodle

Sometimes, I can be an aggressive driver and the result of my driving behavior can frustrate and agitate others. Let me share an incident that happen to me this morning.

This morning as I was driving to class during morning rush hour, I hopped on the Newport Beach freeway at 17th street in Santa Ana and boy is it tough to merge into the freeway because an exit is shared with this lane and it is also used to transition to two other freeways. Talk about a bad design by the fabulous engineers at Caltrans. Anyways, I signal to get in and drivers are reluctant to let me through so I switch to my aggressive-taxi-style-driving and step it up to 60 mph, did a hard two lane cut/merge from the farthest right lane (lane 5) to lane 3 over a white truck (I was about 2-3 car lengths away). I learned in traffic school some odd years ago that sometimes it's best to not signal because some drivers won't even let you through.

Anyhow, the guy in the white truck speeds up real quick to catch me before we slowed down to 5 mph due to traffic and he kept looking at me in a disgusting matter. He then signals me to roll down my window and at that point, I know what this guy's problem is--he was mad that I cut him off or I startled him with such a quick move or it could be a combination of both and/or other reasons. So I rolled my windows down and I was thinking about waving my hand and saying sorry, but I told myself why should I apologize? Lets step up and defend myself for once!
He thus repeatedly tells me to pull over and I just respond "Why!? For what!?" He then says, "because I want to kick your a**!" Oh hell no he did not just say that to me! I then thought, should I pull over and talk to this guy? He might really want to fight. Will my tae-kwon-do and muay thai stand up against him? I might lose, I might win, who knows. If I wanted to fight him, I'd just stop in the middle of traffic so if we got into a physical scuffle, I can have other drivers back me up as this guy is probably 2-3 times my size.

Clouded by the confrontation and argument--I wanted to just change lanes, speed up, and leave this guy--I mistakenly shift to neutral and rev my engine to 7k rpm (thinking I was in gear) and oh boy did this make him even more mad. He says, "Don't rev your engine at me boy, pull the f*** over now!" I still reply with why and he says the same thing over and over. Then I say, "Why do you want to beat me up? You can try, but you'll end up in jail." He says, "I know people that are Orange County Sheriffs, I'll screw you over, pull over right now!" At this point, I know he is bluffing and is purely on road rage adrenaline, not using common sense. I tell him to just go to work and that he's going to be late for work if he keeps this up--I can probably say that I was being a smart ___ to this guy, but it's his problem that he didn't calm himself down.

So I switch lanes, turn up my stereo, and mind my own business and to my surprise, this guy keeps following me, illegally changing lanes far worse than me without regard for the safety of other drivers. The reason why I aggressively did that lane change was because the freeway was busy and I saw an opening that I knew I can make over a safe distance, but due to the speed I was traveling, it made things a little complicated. Anyways, we come to a complete stop for about 5 seconds and he opens his door and was about to step out before traffic was flowing again. Was he really going to come up to me? Did he do this to scare me? I thought he was going to rear end me and force me to pull over too. Maybe I should've pretended to reach in my glovebox for something, haha.

At this point, my adrenaline pumped and I had to choose fight or flight. My hands and legs got shaky, and mentally, I wasn't scared, but this was uncontrollable for about 30 seconds. And so, I still moved on and this guy just keeps following me. So to be safe, I call my friend and tell him to meet me in the parking lot at school. Then I just kept driving and I look and see that the truck was behind another car and he kept swerving left and right to see where I was. As I exited the freeway, I gunned a traffic light that was yellow turning red. He got left behind the traffic light and from here I know I was safely out of harms way. Whew...close call!

So that is my story, crazy huh!? I'm glad this guy didn't have a gun and wasn't able to follow me to school. I have two other similar stories to share, but as you can see, it can be quite long

In closing, what do you think about road rage? Is it really an epidemic? We should have a class combined with driver's ed in high school or anywhere else to educate us on how to react to other drivers and about road rage. Maybe proper driving etiquette too, but sometimes its hard to follow simple rules like that. Here's 3 links I found and it's all over the web if you google it:
http://www.drivers.com/article/462/
http://www.drivers.com/topic/31/
http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/546.php

BigMURR

Man your biggest mistake was responding to that guy, I know when I ____ people off it's hard not to yell back but you've got to. Hell that guy could have had a gun and you would have been another statistic in Cali's road rage fatalities.

My biggest thing is when that person f***s up and when you get mad they start blowing their top, I mean damn you got to expect that when you start doing stupid ish. For instance some kid my age cuts me off and rather than doing the right thing (which was my fault only) and slowing down I stay right on his butt.

He then gets over and start doing his yelling thing, right in front of his girl mind you, and I flip him off well he continues to cut me off and slam on his breaks. well I get over a lane and he freaking throws a bottle at me car!!! damn if we weren't in cars I would have broke his neck, no joke. well luckily my exit was up so I got away from that situation.

but really most of the time both people are at fault so I admit I wouldn't have had a problem if I would have just let the **** do his thing. I don't condone road rage but sometimes you just get caught up in it.

xdorkx

I had about 6 guys in 2 cars driving on either side of me yelling for me to pull over so they could kick my ___. The funny thing is, The FIRST guy was yelling at me for something (I swear, i didnt cut him off or anything, about 20 miles before, I merged into a lane he was also merging into ,but I waved sorry and pulled back, no close call or anything)....then his friends showed up on the other side and threw something (I think a can of coke) at my car, it dented my rear pillar and the dent is still there today. for the life of Me, I cant understand what they were doing. stupid rich bro kids from anaheim hills, I tell ya

xdorkx

Ok, I got another one, I had to find this on a forum so I could copy/paste it. This happened about 4 years ago, back in riverside:

about 4 years ago or so, i was driving home on the 91 (When I lived in riverside), and i saw this big lifted truck (total bro truck) shining a spotlight down the side of the freeway, just being annoying, shining his side offroad light at random things for no reason

so anyways, he turns up la sierra (what do you know, me too).. and i'm up the hill a bit, and he starts throwing trash out the window, like alot of it, and shining the light down the side of the hill....i'm a bit up close to him cause he's going slow, ready to pass, when he suddenly slows down and pulls into the LEFT lane (the opposite traffic lane) and shines his spotlight at my window flipping me off and stuff (all because I was going to pass his crazy ___?). So i'm like 'wtf' and slow down to let him get in front of me...so anyways, we turn left onto el sobrante and i keep flashing at him (basically wanting him to pull over, because I felt confrontational at this point, plus I dislike bro's anyways)..he pulls over about 100 feet ahead of me (this is a pretty quiet road, no street lights, just us two), so i get out, and start walking up to his truck on the passenger side...when i get about 10-15 feet behind the truck, the idiot peels out and drives off quickly.

Well i'm pretty ____ed by now, so i get in my car and 'give chase'...so i follow him up gavlin, past my street, and left onto a dirt road (where i assume he lives)..about 500 feet up the road, he pulls over, turns his little strobe light on my and pulls out a rifle and points it at me asking me what my problem was. (like he doesnt know he's an a-hole driver)..so i tell him that his drivings my problem and to put the gun down (and fight like a man)....but being that he was a good 200 feet away, i didnt wanna chance that it was a .22 or something and not a pellet gun, so i just get back in my car, turn around and leave. Basically, i figure it as this...I won, because he was scared and had to pull a gun on me and act all tough like that. I got a good look at him once when i was up side him back on la sierra, i could have taken him easily..and i guess he thought so too, must have been my semi-pomped and biker leather jacket(haha)...i could tell he was scared/nervous by his voice, but in the dark, from 200 feet away or whatever, i'm not taking chances that the bros got a real gun and not just a toy...hell, the way he was driving i bet that happens alot..and to think, i never flashed my brights on him or anything, i was just speeding up so i could get around his crazy ___

etli

You guys were all being a$$holes. You cut someone off in traffic, they pull up next to you hurling obscenities and rude gestures. Instead of saying sorry with an apolegetic shrug and a wave, you play clueless saying "what? what I do?" - because you don't have anything to apologize for? Wow, that's a lot of principled pride. What are you so proud of? That you don't apologize for what you think you didn't do wrong? The only person who cares about that is you. It's like that Chapelle show sketch about "keepin it real" when it goes to far. You either wind up dead or in jail. (Not the nice pleasant white-collar jail - the jail in "OZ")

Instead of getting into a shouting match / bumper car game with a person yelling at you, just say "Sorry, my bad" and get on with your life. Fighting with random people on the freeway to defend your pride is stupid.

xdorkx

You guys? Hey, what did I do?

BigMURR

yeah man I was the one who got cut off and I did was flip him off and didn't even scream. You kinda of generalized the "you guys" part, maybe that'll hold true with the person who created this thread.

xdorkx

And I tried to pass a guy who was throwing out trash, driving in the wrong lane, and shining his flood light into my car, from his 10 feet high lifted truck.....

mikeydoodle

Well if you read what I wrote, I was going to apologize, but this guy was just being straight up rude to me. If he said something else like slow down or something, then yeah I'll wave and say sorry. I normally just let things like this go, but I got sick of being pushed around. You also have to consider the traffic that was present at the time and the lack of courtesy from other drivers that won't let you in, so hence the taxi driver technique. I also gave him a 2-3 car leeway, possibly more. It's not like I was inches away and almost hit him.

HR_Guy

You probably should have waited and not driven aggresively; someone will eventually have to let you in, even if you're at a complete stop with your signal on. Regardless of what traffic school said, which is hard to believe they would, a cop can pull you over for what you did even if traffic was tough.

The guy probably saw you and immediately thought of a little punk kid driving like an @ss in his tC and wanted to ____ you off. Which I would probably think the same thing if you did that in front of me. Then again, I have my own opinions of people that drive big trucks, so I'll just stop there.

13edge

I'd say I have a road rage problem. Typical NYer, I blow my horn, hands gesturing frantically, motioning to god like he's gonna help out. One guy just caught me totally off guard one day. He had cut me off and I was going through my routine. When we got to the red light, he rolled down his window and I was going to let him have it. He said, "Hey, them Yanks win last night?" Kind of shocked, I was like, "Yeah... Brossius hit a double in the tenth." We talked about baseball.

xdorkx

LOL, only NY'ers, hahaha, thats awesome

"ey, how 'bout dem amazings, eh?!"

scionofPCFL

WTF are they pumping into the water in the OC? HGH and testosterone?

First off, leave early enough so that you don't have to rush.

Secondly, when some goobermunch is following you like that, pick up the phone and call the cops! Tell them where you are, and that you are headed to the nearest police station or dunkin dougnuts, whichever is closer.

I don't care if you're the newest MMA champion, just read the thread on the tC board asking if you carry any type of concealed weapon. Then, imagine the craziest, dumbest, biggest, butt-munch that was just let go from prison two weeks ago, and he's 100% full with 100% don't give a flip about nuthin but pride getting out of that car.

etli

Three words that could save your life -

"Let it go"

Everyone gets aggravated - especially on busy road where you have no control over your situation. But all the stories thus far have two things in common.

1. Someone does something (or a series of somethings) stupid, offensive, dangerous, obnoxious, etc.
2. Someone else sees that person doing it and becomes angry enough to do something about it. (i.e. some action that expresses their displeasure)

And thus the cycle spirals out of control. It doesn't matter if you think you're justified in that action you take to express your displeasure. If you do something agressive, stupid, dangerous, etc, back, you just perpetuate the hate. You are responsible for your own emotions. You are responsible for the ill-advised actions you take when you act on those emotions. It's NOT someone else's fault that you fly into a screaming frothy rage - even if Fate has been making you her b!+ch all day long. I grant you, some people have anger control issues. But the responsibility to deal with that anger falls on the owner, it's not the responsibilty of everyone around the person to tiptoe around him all the time.

draxcaliber

yeah, one time i was stuck in a slow lane, so i checked my mirror, changed lanes, and suddenly a mercedes s class with either a v8 or v12 is on my ___ going 100 mph, flashes his high beams like i cut him off, so i just give him a digital salute and am on my way. ofcourse, my tc can't really leave him in the dust. so the jerk off pulls around me when the lanes opened up and wouldn't let me pass, but would speed up either. it was night time, so i tried some tricks like dropping back a few cars, and turning off my fog lights so he might not recognize me coming up behind him because it was nighttime. but that didn't work. but i know this interstate extremely well, and this jack@$$ had massachusetts plates so me was on my home turf.

(the good part is below here)

the interstate is three lanes where we are, i keep changing lanes, but he keeps blocking me, but i keep changing lanes, so he isn't paying attention to the road or the signs, he doesn't notice the "right lane closes merge left" sign, he continues to cut me off, and with almost perfect timing, i make the jerk almost hit somebody in a porsche.

after that close call, he stopped, got in the right lane, let me pass, and stayed in his or her lane (tinted windows, and night, couldn't see)

now i know that i could have gotten somebody hurt or killed, and so on, but i was mad they wouldn't let me pass for absolutey no reason other than they thought i had wronged them, but if they are too busy cutting me off to pay attention to the road, then i feel they would have got what was coming to them.

so yeah, i realize the danger i put some innocent driver into, but it wasn't me, but they asked for it.

Jenna

9 or so years ago, I must of not checked my blind spot all that well or a car ducked quickly into the lane I was moving into on the freeway. I had to do one of those "oh crap" moves and get back in my own lane.

So I see behind me in my rear view mirror, this female dog who's laughing and giving me the "bravo" clap. She's looking at me look at her and she's doing this purposely so I'll see it. She did this for a full minute or more.

You know, I'm pretty sure we've all had a freeway lane change that went bad. I felt pretty stupid about it but then when I saw that ***** clapping and carrying on... I wanted nothing but to beat the crap out of her (I've never beaten anybody but was willing to make her my first).

I got right behind her and she tried to speed off. I followed her and her minivan at excessive speeds. I even got off at her exit before I got a grip on myself.

I feel bad for getting so angry but I really hope I scared he living poo out of her and that she realized what a stunned c*nt she was.