Ophbalance
08-29-2008, 12:29 PM
I don't usually have any troubles, but it was apparently my "day" for it. My drive involves going around outer loops of various cities here in NC. Below and above Raleigh. At points, I40 is also the outer loop I440 (which makes following signs confusing as all hell at first). So, this means that the right most lane sometimes becomes a turn only, and I need to mosey on over to the "middle" (but soon to be rightmost) lane. My personal pet peeve are the drivers that are behind me, SEE my signal is on (the turn lights on the Elantra are yellow and quite bright, even during daytime), but still decide to go around. But it's not like they change lanes and allow me the spot that was open a second ago. No, they pull along beside me and won't let me over?? I usually move over more than a mile in advance because of this tendency, but sometimes the traffic just doesn't allow it. I had that one happen today by an older gent that was behind me for at least a mile, but only decided to change lanes after I had my signal on and decided to block the lane. So, I said "!@# it" and moved over anyway. I know, bad Matthew, but these !@# won't let you in unless you drive like them in.
The first incident of the day didn't happen to me, but a car in the lane beside me. The inner 440 loop joins the I40/Outer loop just above Raleigh. I40/440 is two lanes but adds a third after the merge, and 440 Outer goes from two lanes to a single lane with a right turn lane. Traffic was clear and I made my way to the through lane, and I'm happily putting along at 60 MPH as it's a slight downhill. I like to keep the speed up for this stretch has a fairly large incline. The incline becomes important in a bit. A BMW that was at some point behind me, changed lanes and was completely around me when I hard the sound of a truck hitting its engine brakes. Trucker dude got 5 feet off the bumper of that poor BMW and rode it all the way up the incline so as not to bleed off his excessive speed. And it was excessive, at least 5+ over the PSL. I let it go for a 10 count, then sped up and made it obvious that I was trying to pull the truckers info from his door panel. Unfortunately my cell phone camera requires going through soft buttons to bring up the camera, and I couldn't do this in time to snap a picture. At this point we're over the rise and hitting the downhill and trucker boy has noticed me. He's no longer ridding the car in front, but he took off like a bat out of @#!$. I let off the gas at this point (I wasn't paying attention to my speed) and he had it over 75. I couldn't find a number, and I'm horrible at remembering digits, or I'd have called him in. Why is it, in this day and age and the abundance of cell phone cameras, that a supposed professional driver would try and pull this crap?
The first incident of the day didn't happen to me, but a car in the lane beside me. The inner 440 loop joins the I40/Outer loop just above Raleigh. I40/440 is two lanes but adds a third after the merge, and 440 Outer goes from two lanes to a single lane with a right turn lane. Traffic was clear and I made my way to the through lane, and I'm happily putting along at 60 MPH as it's a slight downhill. I like to keep the speed up for this stretch has a fairly large incline. The incline becomes important in a bit. A BMW that was at some point behind me, changed lanes and was completely around me when I hard the sound of a truck hitting its engine brakes. Trucker dude got 5 feet off the bumper of that poor BMW and rode it all the way up the incline so as not to bleed off his excessive speed. And it was excessive, at least 5+ over the PSL. I let it go for a 10 count, then sped up and made it obvious that I was trying to pull the truckers info from his door panel. Unfortunately my cell phone camera requires going through soft buttons to bring up the camera, and I couldn't do this in time to snap a picture. At this point we're over the rise and hitting the downhill and trucker boy has noticed me. He's no longer ridding the car in front, but he took off like a bat out of @#!$. I let off the gas at this point (I wasn't paying attention to my speed) and he had it over 75. I couldn't find a number, and I'm horrible at remembering digits, or I'd have called him in. Why is it, in this day and age and the abundance of cell phone cameras, that a supposed professional driver would try and pull this crap?