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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Honestly the best solution, as with most traffic annoyances, is just to quietly curse at them as you go about your day and let the police deal with enforcing the laws.
When trying to teach someone a lesson, you might get the occasional person who was absent-mindedly being annoying, but most people are just going to come away from the interaction thinking YOU are the asshole. Not to mention the person who is being an asshole on purpose looking for confrontation...
I think you summed it up pretty well. It's a bit easier said then done to let go of your rage... But in my experience it's exactly like you said. I've kinda accepted that like 40% of people just can't drive. Any you just got to stay away from them and decide if you want to care. You can't change anything about it and the next a*hole or bad driver is already waiting for you anyways...
That is literally defensive driving.
One of the really annoying things we inherited from reddit are the crowd of idiots who think the entire world can be summed up in a driver's ed manual. Sometimes that manifests as "Driving 5 miles below the speed limit is the safest way to drive" and sometimes it manifests as... a jackass who is flooring it and swerving around traffic while flashing them with their signals because... they are maintaining the flow of traffic in the middle lane of a three lane highway?
The reality is that it doesn't matter what the law is (unless a cop is visible). The other person getting a ticket is a weak consolation when your car is totaled and you are potentially crushed by all the god damned monster trucks on the road.
Defensive driving is about protecting yourself and, by association, the other drivers on the road. If the flow of traffic is that everyone is going 90 on a 60? You should at least be going 80 if you at all feel safe doing so because the alternative is increasingly aggressive drivers around you and an increasing likelihood of getting rear ended by someone who decides they want to pass on the right without looking ahead.
And same here. I've more or less learned to ignore turn signals when I am at an intersection. People aren't turning right until they slow down and ACTUALLY start turning right. Doesn't matter if their blinker is on because it might have been on for the past ten miles or they realize at the last second it is not the turn they want.
And that also applies to highway. I genuinely forget what the driver's ed manual said, but let's say that you are supposed to try to stay in the rightmost lane unless you are actively passing and the idea is that the left lane is for passing the people passing in the middle lane (that sounds wrong to me but, again, no idea). Fuck the law. Because people will randomly slow down 30 miles at a time when they start trying to read the signs to figure out what exit they are in. And "the rules of the road" are generally that the right lane is for getting on and off the highway, the middle lane is for traffic moving "at speed", and the left lane is for passing... or driving 20 below the speed of the middle lane because you are the best driver ever but forgot what you were doing.
At the end of the day: it is about minimizing collisions (and, increasingly, lunatics with guns taking pot shots at you for existing). And a jackass who is swerving around and trying to shame people by flashing their blinkers is doing the opposite of that.
+1 on the "I’ve more or less learned to ignore turn signals"... That was about my second driving lesson. I tried to turn right onto the main street. Someone indicated to turn and I thought I'm now supposed to go. And my driving instructor would always let you make mistakes and then wait for the last moment to brake very abruptly so you really knew you fucked up. In that circumstance, it wasn't clear if the other driver was turning into the street I came from, or if they wanted to get to the gas station 30m ahead. Since I got my driver's license, I always wait if other people slow down and really do the thing they signal for.
I agree that driving isn't always like in the textbook. On the other hand many rules are there for a purpose and some safety regulations really are written in blood. You have to use your brain.
I don't know how highway's work where you live. There are countries/states that allow you to drive on arbitrary lanes. Or allow overtaking people on their right. Usually, doing what other drivers expect you to do, isn't the worst idea 😉
The big assumption you've made is that everything I've described is brought out of rage.
Only flashing the indicator could perhaps be rageful, and even then it's more of an innocuous vent than anything else.
Sure. Maybe I was a bit dramatic when I typed the reply. I know how annoying some other drivers are and how they make it worse for everyone. I wouldn't even be mad at you if lost your cool. And I'm not against using indicators or flashing your lights at people. That's kind of why we have them in the first place. Only thing I'd have a problem with is brake-checking people or intentinally getting too close. Flashing or honking to signal them to get out of the way is pretty alright in my eyes.
The best option would be for ongoing training for driving.
Police don't enforce the laws. Police are quite happy to punish people for speeding, because it's an easy charge to convict - it's much harder to convict someone with the crime of sitting in the middle lane. So they don't bother.
In my experience in the UK, most drivers actually respond to an interaction like I've described. When I flashed the indicator, then moved over to the inside lane, many drivers followed and moved into the inside lane. When I've looped around them, I've never been able to complete that many loops, because the other driver has realised what I'm doing and moved into the inside lane.
Communication =/= confrontation. When driving, we are very limited in our communication - but that doesn't mean there is no way to communicate.
Agreed 100% there!
The problem (and probably why you're getting downvoted) is that physically using your 2-ton vehicle travelling at freeway speeds to coerce someone into doing something is not really communicating. It's not a method prescribed by any kind of authority or training, and is actively discouraged by most! Sure it may get the result YOU want in the moment, but communication requires understanding.
Personally, if someone were to overtake me and then slow down intentionally, I'd take that as them being an inattentive driver at best, and a passive-aggressive jerk at worst.
It's definitely passive aggressive, but in my experience it wakes up drivers sat in the middle lane.