Originally published at: Watch driver force another out of lane in a fit of road rage | Boing Boing
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Putting a bunch of peoples’ lives at risk. Where have we seen this before?
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I do not miss that shit every day on my commute.
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If you look closely he hit some of the white poles and they knocked a bit of trim off his truck. Serves him right.
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Administering a “brake check” is an aggressive maneuver all by itself. Since you never know who might have a gun in the vehicle, it’s better to just let these jerks have their way.
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What was even the point? Edge someone over to get behind the auto they were previously tailgating?
To me, it looks like both drivers are assholes. The one in the sedan was already tailgating the driver in front of them, then made more space (the brake tap) when they were getting aggressively tailgated. BUT, they then start to close the gap again, making me think safety wasn’t really the intention.
I’m with you, @Papasan , I SO don’t miss this.
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I’ve never understood why drivers come flying up and get right on somebody’s tail, especially when they can see well in advance that you are slower than them and they have plenty of time and space to change lanes. Some of those types quickly get impatient and change lanes to go around, while others may tailgate for miles until you change lanes, then they hit the gas again. “There ya go, buttsniffer, you’re free (until you do it again).”
It’s my theory that long-duration tailgating arises from the innate sociability that most humans have, combined with a lack of foresight that seems absurd to me. Even some of the most aggressive people are OK with sheepishly following somebody else.
But that pickup driver was just a dangerous asshole.
(ETA this rant gave me an earworm for the morning:
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And I was on a motorcycle like 99% of the time, hell no.
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It sure looked to me like they braked because the driver ahead of them braked.
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Depends on the situation. Is there traffic in front? Then, yeah, asshole. No traffic in front? The burden is on the vehicle going slower in the fast lane to yield that lane to faster traffic.
Passive-aggressively holding the fast lane while going slower than prevailing traffic is a dick move. Get over.
Lately, the vast majority of such drivers around here are on their phone, so that’s a double-whammy of bad driving.
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Hard to say from the video, but I wonder if the pickup driver was trying to illegally pass on the left (maybe to antagonize the driver in front along the way) and realized they had to quickly get back into an actual lane when the poles started to block the way. Regardless, it was terrible dangerous driving and everyone in the vicinity was lucky there wasn’t an accident.
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Well, my tirade wasn’t specific to the “fast lane” (which is an improper term, since that lane has the same speed limit as all the others), but I do agree with you that the leftmost lane(s) should be for passing, not long-term use.
The pickup driver should have been able to see quite some distance down the highway. If not, then they were stupidly reckless to be driving like that. Assuming they could see, then they had plenty of time to adjust accordingly. They have no excuse.
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Trying to remember the last time I drove on a highway where I wasn’t nearly sideswiped, having to either go into the shoulder, another lane if possible, or else slam on the brakes to avoid someone else’s reckless driving…nope, can’t think of any time in the last decade when that hasn’t been the norm.
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For a long time my work hours had me either going in the opposite direction of the rush hour flow, or avoiding it altogether. That was a nice fringe benefit.
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On the way to my aunts to swing by and pick up some gifts, some dude blew by me at at least 100mph. It didn’t even look like a fancy car. I sounded and smelled like shit, so I guess some guy who took an old beater and made it fast.
Then on the way back, someone in an Escalade blew by me at at least 90mph. I guess people had places to go on Christmas Eve.
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I tend to use “fast lane” rather than “left lane” in order to avoid confusion with places that are RHD like the UK. And the name is apt, because, regardless of speed limit, the intention is for faster traffic to use that lane. That’s the whole purpose of multi lane roads, to accommodate traffic that will inevitably have different speeds. Note also there are many highways with differential speed limits for truck and passenger vehicles. Trucks may be limited to slower speed and to the slow lane.
As for the pickup in the video: yeah, pure asshole all the way.
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I hope you were able to clean up before seeing your family 
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I had to laugh at this, because I’ve made a point of noticing that every time I pass the first sign across the Indiana border on the left-hand side of the highway that says “No Trucks in Left Lanes”, I can’t see it until I’m nearly parallel to it because of all the 18-wheelers in front of me blocking it!
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Yeah could be. Just saying I’ve seen testosterone-poisoned young dudes slam on their brakes to precipitate a fight with the driver behind them.
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The pickup truck driver was unquestionably an asshole in that vid.
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