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This afternoon, I was driving to the gym. As I was exiting the tollway (6-lanes) to take the exit to the gym at 40mph, a medium-sized SUV butts into that lane, almost pushing me into the concrete barrier on the right. :mad: She was preoccupied gabbing on her cell phone.

In the space of about 30 seconds, I remained on the tollway got up to about 75mph (which unfortunately is about the speed of the pack). Since both of us had our windows down at the time, she clearly heard me scream (exact words):

Drop that flipping phone!!!

I took the next exit and went back to the gym. Her reaction seemed to indicate she knew exactly what infuriated me - almost pushing me into the wall while on the phone. Of course, there are people that might escalate things instead.


I'm not so sure my anger was that inappropiate in this instance. It was almost civil and immediately after the misdeed. (Well, I could have taken more chances and raged more)

While highway outbursts is not something I condone, is it a virtue to just let her go by after nearly running me into the wall? Recent threads have expressed my angst over how to best put such bad drivers in line. No, I'm not suggesting I take things into my own hands - I just want such distracted driving to result in a lot more tickets, higher insurance rates, something that would make this behavior painful.

Hi Chuck:

___Although she clearly made a mistake, you just never know when an incident of this sort is going to escalate and get out of hand. I will urge you to just let it go. A simple honk so that she knows she jammed you is about all you can do. Running up to 75 mph to get along side and scream anything at her cost you a great segment. Not to say you did anything wrong because you did not but when a touch of road rage no matter how clear the situation is costs you fuel, was it worth it?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Fortunately, nothing happened, and I realize it's always a possibility. My posts indicate such inconsiderate drivers have gotten under my skin.

Realizing my struggles with this, I leave for work early, etc. to reduce the chances of unpleasant driving experiences.

This kind of distracted driving was the motivation of posting the GPS speed limiter thread that became hot. I don't know the best solution, but the freeways should not be like the Wild West. I wish somehow bad driving could be monitored or policed to the extent bad driving was rare. It would also save gas.

I have ambilavlent feelings. Hope next time I'll have the alertness to honk the horn. I don't like the part about Defensive Driving of someone poping out of nowhere at anytime....it's way too common these days.

You never know. Maybe his yelling at her caused her to put the phone away and slow down and prevented a future accident.

It has come to a point now that I think ignoring offensive behavoir is basicly the same as condoning it.

Honking might have sufficed, but who knows if she would even get in her mind that SHE was the one being honked at?

Those were my thoughts, Tom - her expression seemed to indicate she realized she was driving distracted as we had eye contact.

Of course someone might make a valid point that it could be a guy that jumped the gun on happy hour and up the ante. :(


This seemed like a situation that had pros and cons....

Chuck,

I have had way to many drivers fly up behind me while I have been driving slower than the Pack. Kinda similar to your situation, only not running me into anything just on my bumper like Glue. It's not a very good situation but people on cell phones that are not paying attention to where their going is happening more and more every where now. It just happened that you were caught up in it because of the difference in speeds of the vehicles. She or whomever it was driving and on the cell was just not paying attention as usual and you were the un-lucky driver to be there at that time. Now here is what I have for some time now decided to do in regards to those kinds of situations revolving around speed and cell phone usuage etc. from other drivers. (Lets face it the Majority of Drivers). I "Personally" try not to hold up traffic and I drive like at 65 MPH on the interstate and have found my {Nerves} and every day driving has become much more {Relaxed} as I have made some allowance for the Majority of other drivers and traffic flow. Now does that give me the up-most in FE? (NO) However I can live with the decrease in Personal FE and every trip and drive that I take I am now No-Longer constantly worrying about getting Slammed into in the Rear or all the other Unpleasant Gestures that one receives from the other motorist on the Hwys. in all the bumper to bumper traffic that we drive in where I live. It's not to say that I in my decision have the right answer to this but simply just to give some extra insight into another person and how they have chosen to handle the other motorist and traffic these days. So I think we all as motorist have decisions to make that work best for our travels on the Hwys. these days according to where we live and drive in our every day travels.

Just as a quick side note. I will not be setting any FE Records but I am much more relaxed now and when I get to work or home don't dred the trip back to whereever I am going. So as I said in my remarks above, in my situation I can live with the FE which just happens to be (Twice or More) than the people around me in the much larger Suv's/Truck's Etc. So to each his/her own and live and let live is where I have chosen my Path these days. Love the HCH II and now I am enjoying it alot more and my nerves are in alot better shape.

Terry
Trying to drive safer these days: :)

I feel your pain Chuck. Lately I've just yelled as loud as possible but with the windows up so only I hear it then flip them off but out of sight. Seems to calm me down just as good as having the window open. Haven't had too many road rage encounters lately probably because I try and stick to the secondary roadways. ;)

DF- I can fully understand the anger, as well as your wondering what to do about it. My experience is that it's a complete crapshoot as to whether a driver will ever face up to their own negligence. Last time something like this happened to me I honked, and just got the finger right back.

Whatever you do, just make sure that it's in your own best interests. Personal experience is that letting my anger control me results in my feeling worse than if I had just let the incident go. Karma will find these people. Eventually...

This might clarify the situation: It was a six-lane, (maybe 8-lane at that point) tollway. I was a few yards from exiting the tollway and slowing to 40mph. In this instance, I don't think hypermiling aggrivated this situation. It was simply a preoccupied caller that did not care you pass left - not right.

Ralph, yes, I have looked at alternate routes, esp in the evening. I don't look forward to such situations and prefer to do what can be done to reduce their probility.

I've mentioned having my Insight 5.5 years - four collisions in the first two years (all faulted on the other guy but guiltless in only 1 or 2 of them). Unlike this situation, I had instances of clearly unjustified road rage back then. :o I'm no saint.

This is my take on some people that purchase big vehicles for safety:

I'm too busy or too lazy to drive defensively
Just not interested in taking active responsibility for the safety of myself and others.
I'll take the easy way out and drive something big. Besides, they might be afraid of messing with me in the first place.This is a very general statement, but is seems more people get into their own little world and tune out everybody else - the highways are no exception.


_____________________________

It amazes me at how comfortable many people are with being rude. Different situation: I turned in my rental and was waiting for them to shuttle me to the Honda dealer. It's 5pm Friday - very busy. The shuttle van is packed and one man has two children under five that need seats to stap in. At one point, he proceeds to hurl the F-word a couple of times at the shuttle driver, who is doing her best. Not only did I consider speaking, but is this how you behave in front of you children? :confused: