Yeah, I assume some of those examples are people poking fun.
Case in point:
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They drive with impunity, which makes me super suspicious that they are off-duty cops. I often see a muscle cars driving way over 60 mph on a nearby street, and over 100 mph on the freeway.
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That was a good read. Internet Archive link for those who don’t want a NYT account: They Dispense Street Justice in NYC, One Defaced License Plate at a Time - The New York Times (archive.org)
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Freeways are a textbook case of chaos theory; one car can do something that throws off the flow of hundreds of other cars. The “accordian effect” in real-time can add 30 minutes to your commute with no more effort but to tap your brakes. Road rage isn’t a one-event reaction but a boiling tea kettle of small, unrelated events.
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When you see somebody driving dangerously, my advice is to get far away from them. The less involved with them I can be, the better.
I don’t care how people decorate their cars either so long as they’re safe. There is a culture and type of person often associated with mods that translates into bias, and I get that too.
But like that Tesla badge/Toyota car - that owner seems likely to be funny.
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Not that it matters much but that is a Model X based on the lights and spoiler. Not a Model Y.
Either way this driver needs to be taken off the streets.
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You’d think by now that Teslas would have self-driving road rage.
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when getting attacked, would it be okay to pull forward? even if it takes the door off?
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Then there’s the (ancient) joke of That One Guy who put a spoiler on the back of their Honda Civic that was taller than the car itself. (aka a “lawnmower handle”) Or the other guy that mounted a spoiler on either side of the trunk lid, thus preventing the trunk from being usable. (I’ll not get into the commonality of putting an “R-type” badge on vehicles that never had such an iteration of them made)
Oh, and I just remembered this from a few years ago while I was commuting one fine evening: There was a vehicle locally that had ‘drag blocks’ installed on their vehicle that made it look like it was dragging on the road, but instead was just tearing up the asphalt and spraying sparks and crap for a couple hundred feet behind them. IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC. IN THE FAST LANE.
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I’m seriously curious about this. I mean, one could argue that they were trying to escape a dangerous assault, and if the Tesla was in the way, so be it. 
ETA: Even better if the battery caught the Tesla on fire and burnt it into the ground.
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I’ve brushed past a parked Tesla a few times where it actually flashed its warning lights. I’m pretty sure it does that and records you as an anti-theft strategy. I am also pretty sure recording me without my consent is illegal in the EU.
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I bet there are a lot of cracked rear windows on those cars.
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Could you explain why? I don’t quite grasp how that follows, unless you mean people purposely breaking them.
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I guess I’m thinking of shorter spoilers: simple physics-- you put a big spoiler on the trunk, then open the trunk. . . smash, right into the window. If it’s super tall it would go right over the roof, and snap the antenna.
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ohhh, yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking from driving, not opening the trunk 
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It isn’t, of course, but obscuring, removing, or simply never registering for plates is very common in CA. It isn’t something that is enforced very much. I knew a guy back in the day who drove all three of his cars unregistered for several years. He did it intentionally because he was a libertarian anti-government type. He finally got one fix-it ticket for one of his cars after almost a decade of doing this. So he registered that car at his parents’ address in Michigan (also illegal) just to “stick it” to CA. He was a fine gentleman.
Related to the story, the other thing that is very very common in CA is carpool lane abuse by Teslas. Yes they are allowed to drive in that lane if properly registered and displaying the HOV lane stickers. Tesla drivers by and large just assume they are allowed and don’t want to put stickers on their fancy car so they don’t do the paperwork. I have actually seen multiple Teslas get pulled over for this though, which always made my morning commute.
This matters because the state limits the number of HOV lane stickers per year to keep the HOV lane from being overrun, and they have rolling criteria for who qualifies (hence all the different coloured stickers). For example, Priuses used to qualify, but they no longer do. You have to be full electric, and the original yellow stickers are now invalid. You see a lot of Prius people ignoring this law too, though.
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I worked with someone who left the dealer placard on her license plate for four years, just so she wouldn’t get a ticket driving on the uncrowded toll portion of the 110 fwy.
One day her boyfriend was driving her car with her in the passenger seat on a city street and the cops pulled him over with their guns drawn. They assumed he was a gang member. Plates went on the car that evening.
I also noticed that CA changed their temporary licenses from the taped piece of paper on the windshield to the one on the license plate about 60 days later. I’m certain that it had to do with the toll road operators complaining about lost revenue rather than any an uptick in crime. Never cross a corporation.
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Just the other car? What about the guy wielding the pipe? Hitting the gas hard, an uncontrolled swerve to the left and right as flight mode from danger kicks in. That guy could have been pinned against the barrier or into his own car.
At first I thought the recording guy was remarkably calm, but then noticed the video cut in the middle. I know I would be freaked out if someone did that to me. Not sure if it would be stunned and frozen or panicked flight. Certainly not measured controlled reaction.
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I’m not sure if I could actually run somebody over, though. They’d have to be a real asshole, like Dick Cheney or Vladimir Putin.
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Not on purpose. You wouldn’t rear end the other car on purpose trying to get away either.
Lots of panic, flooring the accelerator, questionable steering grip. Depending on the drivetrain, front or back of the car could whip out sideways. All kinds of bad things could have happened to all of them.
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