Were you trying to get both of us killed?

[Summerfly413]

I was driving home from work the other night on one of the main roads. It's pretty deserted this time of night, so there's only a few other cars.

Now, I was driving the speed limit, maybe a little above it, but I wasn't speeding. It was a fairly fast speed though at 45-50mph.

I see up ahead a truck pulling to the end of a driveway of an apartment complex on the left side of the road. They stopped for traffic on their side of the road, and since they were facing straight, I pretty much knew they were going to end up on my side of the road at one point or another.

Well, the traffic on their side of the road passes, but by this time I'm seconds away from passing where the truck was. They started to pull out. It seemed like they thought better of it and stopped.

...And then they decided to go for it.
Ok...Maybe they'll pull into the right lane next to me, no one's there. That would be the smart thing to do.

Nope. They pull right in front of me. I literally had to swerve and slam on my brakes(I'm really surprised I stayed on the road actually). I honked and drove around them. They were barely accelerating too. They didn't even try to go faster even though they knew a car was coming behind them.

[Shalom]

When I was taking my road test (way back in 1986), I'd made the required 3-point turn and was heading back to the starting point. On my way I passed someone else taking his own test; he was in the middle of the 3-point turn himself, had gone forward and backed up, and was presumably waiting for cross traffic to clear before going forward. Except that he wasn't: he started forward just as I was going by, and nearly T-boned me. I saw his car start to move, and suddenly nose-dive, as his tester jammed his foot on the second brake pedal. I figured I'd flunked because of this, but when I got to the end, the inspector said, "I'm going to pass you, but there's one thing you should have done differently: you should have sounded your horn as you were passing the guy making the U-turn." I said "I'll bet he didn't pass, though...?" She said "No, I wouldn't think so. Making an unsafe maneuver is an automatic failure."

So when I come up on a guy who looks like he may be thinking about darting out in front of me, or doing something similarly moronic as the truckdriver that pulled out in front of you did, I always tap the horn as I come up on him. Not lean on it, you understand, just a short honk or two to give him notice that I'm coming and I don't intend to stop, and it usually works to get their attention. I've seen lots of similar stories in this board, and hardly anyone seems to be using the horn until after the other guy does the unsafe maneuver. I always wonder why not; that's what it's there for, as a warning.

(The NJ Driver's Manual even says that you should sound your horn as you pass someone on a two-lane road. I've never seen anyone do this.)