Road Rage: Vent Here

[crowschmo]

I was just driving home from having gone on a walk. I turned up a street that has a fairly steep hill and I'm going up it at around 40 mph which is NOT SLOW by any stretch of the imagination on that particular street, and the idiot behind me is driving too close. Then when we start going DOWNHILL (my foot is not even on the brake, mind you, as my car automatically doesn't go zooming down hills, so still not like I'm going at a crawl here) this jackass veers around me and speeds ahead of me like an a-hole. Then he/she (couldn't see) turns left down the same road I'm going to go - and has to wait for oncoming traffic. I'm yelling "are you f*cking kidding me!"

So this loser is turning anyway and has to wait, but I wasn't going fast enough for his ass? (Maybe he had to pee?) I don't know but, he/she is going the same roads I'm going on the way home and there's this part where one can go one of two ways and this moron then chooses the LONG WAY around and I end up ahead of him/her again. Jerk wasn't even at the next stop sign yet when I got there and went on my merry way (I saw his car starting to turn at the extra stop sign he had to get to before getting to the corner I was turning).

So you speed past someone going DOWNHILL (what if an animal or something had started to cross and I had had to swerve?), only to drive at regular speeds after that ONE car you were behind and end up getting behind them again anyway?

What a stupid douche.

[sol-survivor]

^^^^ I had something similar once. A couple years ago I was on my way home from work in the dark. The weather was good so that wasn't a factor, but I had some idiot riding my bumper almost the entire way. Even after exiting off my "favorite" highway and going along a couple more roads he kept following me. I was not going below the speed limit and he had plenty of time to get around me on the highway anyway. Don't know why he didn't. One of my last turns is a short distance from going down a fairly steep hill. The lummox following me decided he was going to finally pass me going downhill and was, in fact, driving alongside me for several yards on a two lane road. He was lucky no one was going up the hill at the time. I have to make a left turn at the bottom of the hill and I was wondering if he was going to prevent me from turning. But then the idiot driver made the same left turn I was going to make, only he made it from the left lane. He then sped down the road doing at least 50 in a 30 mph speed zone. By the time I made my turn seconds later that car was already out of sight. I really wished there had been a police car around but there wasn't. The only excuses for driving like that would be a fire, blood, or active labor, and considering there's no hospital around there and the fire department is on the other side of town none of those seem likely. Sheer selfishness and stupidity and dumbassery are not valid excuses.

[crowschmo]

I absolutely hate those blue headlights.

[sol-survivor]

^^^ Me, too.

Entering Year 3 of a three-year (that seems like 30) highway reconstruction that involves widening the interstate to six lanes. The same highway I've posted about so many times is a real mess. It goes under an interstate overpass and they have periodically over the past couple of years closed lanes to allow for lifting the steel girders up to the overpass. Lots of fun to get caught in those backups. Currently all the traffic is shifted over to the usually northbound lanes while they work on the new lanes. They're pouring concrete now so everything will get shifted over to the southbound lanes in a few weeks. With everything shifted over to one side that is a real PITA during high traffic periods, plus the turning lanes have been turned into those lovely blinking yellow arrow lanes, which I ranted about a few posts ago. The on-ramp to get on the eastbound interstate was removed last year and now all the semis that usually got on the interstate that way now have to get to another ramp a couple miles away on another highway that's also being redone. It isn't unusual at certain times a day to see at least half-a-dozen semis so backed up in a turning lane to get on that other highway that they block the cars that want to go straight ahead. The poor abused concrete has so many potholes in it I'm surprised someone's car hasn't been swallowed up. They're putting in a Diverging Diamond which is supposed to be much safer to navigate. We'll see, but almost anything will be a relief after this mess.

[crowschmo]

So, I'm on a main, busy four-laned thoroughfare. Lots of traffic. I'm at a red light in the right lane, cars behind me, cars going my way in the left lane next to me. Some total douche bag on a motorcycle goes in BETWEEN the two lanes of cars and goes THROUGH the red light.

This right here is a moron to nth power. This is the type of person who will cause accidents for others, then go on his way (to probably crash himself in some other instance).

JERK.