Idiot Entitled Mini Driver

[bhskittykatt]

The other day, I'm driving down a road. There are two lanes going in each direction. I'm in the inner lane, heading straight, approaching an intersection where a left-turn lane is about to branch off to my left.

There is a shopping center with a grocery store on my right. There is a Mini apparently waiting to turn right across all lanes to get to the left-turn lane.

The car beside me in the right lane is turning into this grocery store, so they slow down to turn. Apparently, Mini driver thinks that car is stopping just for her (<sarcasm>after all, the world revolves around her </sarcasm>), and must have expected me to stop as well, because she PULLS OUT RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME AS I'M HEADING FULL-SPEED DOWN THE ROAD!!!

I slam on my breaks, swerve left, and I swear to God, I came within two to three inches of hitting her. No exaggerations there. I had literally JUST picked up my car from the shop that very morning to get fresh brake pads; if I hadn't done that, I undoubtedly would have hit her.

I give Mini driver a WTF look, and then...she SMILES and WAVES at me!!! Excuse me? This is not a smile-and-wave matter; this is an oh-my-God-I-am-so-sorry-I'll-never-do-it-again matter! But noooo......no apologies, she SMILES and WAVES!!! If I didn't depend on my car for my job, I would have just let my car slam into that shiny Mini and jack up her insurance rates!

[tropicsgoddess]

What a moron. I nearly rear ended some jackass in a Camry (I was on my way to work) that merged in front of me when there wasn't enough space to do that AND that fucktard didn't bother to signal!

[blas]

I've gotten that smile and wave before....and laughs.

Usually from morons at 4 way stops who fully intend on slow and going instead of stopping and waiting, and of course, nearly T-boning me.

I stop and just let them go, and it's always been women doing the smile/laugh/wave.

That's not funny. At all.

[MadonnaC]

A friend of mine had to suffer an EW like that

He's barreling down the road (it's a 60 mph road) and EW decides that as the person coming out of the gas station has stopped to let her in, then they are entitled to go.

Yes, it was a mess - wrote off both cars. fun part that makes EW - their words: "you should have seen the other driver waving me across and known I was going to cross the road"

[Sandman]

A friend of mine had to suffer an EW like that

He's barreling down the road (it's a 60 mph road) and EW decides that as the person coming out of the gas station has stopped to let her in, then they are entitled to go.

Yes, it was a mess - wrote off both cars. fun part that makes EW - their words: "you should have seen the other driver waving me across and known I was going to cross the road"

Just because the other person is yielding their right.. doesn't mean you lose your right....

[Kogarashi]

"you should have seen the other driver waving me across and known I was going to cross the road"

And this is why my driving instructor told us to never signal someone else to cross in front of us, whether pedestrian or vehicle, unless you were absolutely certain that no one else was going to run the risk of hitting them. And even then, you should still rethink.

[Chromatix]

And conversely, I've been taught that even if someone signals you forward, it's still up to you to double-check that the way is clear.

[SuperDan]

Around here, they call it "the wave of death" if someone waves you to go in front of them when there's another lane of travel in their direction. Never accept the wave of death.

[Andara Bledin]

Around here, they call it "the wave of death" if someone waves you to go in front of them when there's another lane of travel in their direction. Never accept the wave of death.

Quoted for truth & great justice.

^-.-^

[Shalom]

Just because the other person is yielding their right.. doesn't mean you lose your right....

~~~ cue wavy lines ~~~

I remember back when I was about 10, my father took me to the car show at the old NY Colosseum, which was razed years ago. Since there wasn't going to be anywhere near there to park, my father left his car in a lot downtown and took a taxicab up to the Colosseum. It was one of the old Checker Marathon cabs with the folding seats in the back, which probably wasn't so old then. The cabdriver was an older Black man, and he and my father were conversing as we rode up Tenth Ave. At some point some idiot driver cut us off or something, and the cabbie let him go. I said something like, "Hey, how come he went first? I thought we had the right of way."

The cabbie looks at me in the rear view mirror and says, "Son, let me explain you something. The right-of-way is not something you have, it's something the other guy gives you. If he don't give it to you, Brother, you ain't got it."

Never forgot that, even though I didn't start driving until ten years later.

[LadyAndreca]

Around here, they call it "the wave of death" if someone waves you to go in front of them when there's another lane of travel in their direction. Never accept the wave of death.

Quoted again. This is how I got in my first car accident, when I was 16. No one was hurt, but it totalled both cars.

[Andara Bledin]

Quoted again. This is how I got in my first car accident, when I was 16. No one was hurt, but it totalled both cars.

A former co-worker's mother was hit and killed while crossing a street because the first car stopped and waved her by, but the second car never even saw her.

The co-worker, a reasonable individual, didn't blame the kid that hit her at all, since it should have been her mother's responsibility to look for her own safety, particularly since she was jaywalking. I think she actually talked to him to let him know it wasn't his fault and he shouldn't let it get to him too much. The guy was only 17, so he was probably really shook up.

^-.-^

[Red_Dazes]

A former co-worker's mother was hit and killed while crossing a street because the first car stopped and waved her by, but the second car never even saw her.

Really great she didn't guilt the kid out about it. Really horribly sad. But I'm glad she didn't go into the whole "It's your fault!!OMG!!!" thing.

I can't count the number of times I have almost killed the local college kids. There is a 4 lane road (2 lanes either way) right by the campus. and a giant cross walk. I always am careful around there but a few times the car to my left will just slam on their breaks to let these guys cross and I don't know what is going on till there is some frightened person standing right in front of my car as I feel I am about to have a heart attack from slamming on my breaks so hard.

...didn't anyone's parents teach them to look both ways before crossing the street??

[Kogarashi]

A former co-worker's mother was hit and killed while crossing a street because the first car stopped and waved her by, but the second car never even saw her.

I nearly had my hand taken off by a car in a similar situation.

My last year in University, my husband and I lived in on-campus married housing. There was a crosswalk to get to campus that went across a five-lane road (two lanes each way, two-way turn lane in the middle), that apparently the city didn't feel needed an actual traffic light, since only the crosswalk crossed the five-lane street there and there was a light another two+ blocks up (further away from campus). Instead, they put in a post on either side of the street to hold a bunch of bright orange flags, and signs instructing pedestrians to take a flag, wait for cars to notice them, then cross.

Needless to say, about half the pedestrians actually did this, and about half the cars even paid attention.

When I went to cross one day, I picked up the flag and waited. Several cars passed right in front of me before this one minivan seemed to notice at the last minute that I was there and slammed on their breaks, stopping halfway into the crosswalk, and signalled for me to cross. I hadn't seen any cars coming up in the second lane that direction, so I started across. Still, to be safe, rather than just stepping into the second lane I stuck out the flag a bit and peered around.

Good thing, too. This Jeep came flying up from out of nowhere and blasted through the crosswalk without so much as slowing down. I swear the tip of the flag was mere inches from their car, and it rightly startled me and I jumped back a bit. The car after the Jeep was paying more attention and stopped, and I managed to make it the rest of the way across.

I hated that intersection, but going to the one further from campus would add a good fifteen minutes to my walk to class, making me late, and the next intersection closer was some five or six blocks away (this was a major road with few traffic lights on it). The timing on that street was awful so that when it was clear in one direction for pedestrians, it wasn't in the other, and vice versa. Plus even with the bright orange flags, there were plenty of motorists who sped on the road and didn't pay any attention to anything that wasn't a traffic signal or another oversized vehicle. ::sigh::