Sunday, October 17, 2004

Tailgating Party

If there's one thing I hate when I'm driving, it's tailgaters. You know who I mean, those stupid drivers who are so impatient to get where they're going that they look like they're attached to your bumper. One big problem with that -- what if I have to hit the breaks? What if a kid runs out across the street in front of me or something?
I might miss them with my car, but then the stupid tailgater behind me will hit my bumper, push me forward, and unless we get lucky, bye-bye kid. Which isn't a pretty picture.
I was always told that when driving, if you needed to stop suddenly your car didn't really stop right away. You needed to keep about the distance in front of you as a tenth of your car length times the speed you're driving. For example, if you're driving 25 mph, then you need to have 2.5 car lengths in front of you. Made sense to me.
Now, I don't want to get rear-ended by some impatient driver, so I've decided that my way of dealing with tailgaters will be to teach them safety and patience. If you only leave a car length between us, then I'm going to drive 10 mph. Sadly, these tailgaters leave about 2 ft. So where does that leave me? I guess I go 3 mph or something. My spedometer doesn't go that slow, though, so I usually just do 5.
So if you're driving really close behind a car, and they keep slowing and slowing as you edge closer and closer, honk your horn and wave, because it's probably me.
I don't like waves with middle fingers, though, just to warn you. I'm picking the speed, I get to pick the rules. =)

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My father yells at people like that. He does get his revenge from time to time, as he coasts through intersections at 40 mph continually passing cars that zoom off at 60 mph and come screeching to a halt and wait for the stoplight to change.

My philosophy is, if you can't handle driving at the speed limit then the problem is with YOU, not me for being "so slow". That and the two second rule. (be at least two seconds behind the car in front of you)

Peter Cahill

9:05 PM  
Blogger Me said...

Ha ha, yes. I just have fun trying to annoy them, because they really do annoy me. And then they turn when you don't, or vice versa, and suddenly they speed off as quickly as possible. I don't know if that's to make up for lost time, or to show you how annoyed they are with you. I just smile and wave. =)

10:07 PM  

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