Ignoring Other Cars Does Not Make Them Go Away

[Dips]

I'm in the right lane on on a two lane road coming home from work. Ahead of me a turning lane opens up which I'm going to move into to get on the highway.

This all happened way faster than it takes to read.

At the last second the guy to my left must have decided he needed to get on the highway and he starts moving into my lane.

OK. Maybe he didn't see me. So I used my horn to make myself audible.

I know if I'm chaning lanes and hear a horn from a car I didn't see next to me, I freaking stop changing lanes and come up with a plan B.

Not this guy. He kept coming!

OK. He probably didn't hear me. Or he thinks his sense of entitlement is powerful enough to beam my car out of his way or something. Maybe he thinks my reflexes are so good they can bend the laws of space and time.

What really happened was that I swerved onto the shoulder, still blaring the horn and hoping he wouldn't keep coming and force me onto the sidewalk.

No such luck. I ended up on the freaking sidewalk because he just kept plowing over like I didn't exist. Thankfully nobody was on the sidewalk. Believe me I'd have let the guy hit me if that sidewalk had been occupied. Better him and me in our steel shells than some innocent pedestrian.

Then the road widened and I ended up in the turning lane with the idiot behind me. He must have FINALLY realized there was a CAR in the space he was trying to occupy and backed off. Glanced in the rearview and it was some old guy who was all wide-eyed and scowling. I guess he was taken by complete surprise that other cars were on the road. In a business area. On a weekday. At 5:15 PM.

After we both got on the highway I drove the speed limit hoping he would pass me so I could get his plate number. Yeah. He avoided me like the plague. Imagine.

[mikoyan29]

This seems to be a growing trend where people just make their lane changes without looking behind to make sure there isn't someone occupying the space they want to be in. I forget the actual steps from driver's ed but I do know that one of them is to check your blind spots before lane changing. I wont even mention the whole signal your intent thing....

[Iseeyouthere]

Dear SC,

We always want you and your line to stop breeding... but please... if you are going to take yourself out of existance... please don't take the decent people down with you.

Thanks.

[Shalom]

. Glanced in the rearview and it was some old guy who was all wide-eyed and scowling. :

I wonder if the guy was hearing impaired and in denial about it.

My grandfather was rather hard of hearing in his later years, and he either refused to wear his hearing aid, or wore it but never changed the battery. I always worried about him driving. I mean, he was a good driver, but what if he didn't hear a horn or a siren or something?

(I found my father's birth certificate once, and back then it gave the occupations of the parents. It said that his father was a machinist in a defense plant, which was news to me, as he'd been an accountant for as far back as anyone could remember. So I asked my grandpa about it, as he was still alive then. He told me that he'd started out as a photographer, but when we got into WWII, he got a job in the Navy Yard; dunno if he enlisted or was a civilian employee. I've wondered if that noisy environment contributed to his hearing loss.)

[blas]

People are just jackasses.

One Friday in recent months, I was going to Arbys on a road that has two lanes on one side, one on the other (for whatever reason).

Someone decided to try to change lanes without looking to pass a slow garbage truck. I honked. They kept coming. I honked when they got in front of me and proceeded to putz.

Yesterday, someone hopped on the freeway and panicked at the sight of orange barrels, and stomped the brakes down to 40 mph. I honked out of frustration. I didn't even see their head move at all.

Idiots.

[LewisLegion]

Same thing happened to me the other day. Heading down the turning lane, guy in the straight lane decides he wants to turn, and jumps into my lane. No signal, didn't look, just jumps out of his lane. I swerved, and must have missed him by an inch (he would have hit me right on my right front tire if this gives you an indication of our positions when he jumped out).

Of course, HE blares his horn and starts waving and cussing at me like I was at fault. And as soon as I passed, he hits the gas again...

...and nearly hits the woman right behind me. Repeat the horn blowing and finger waving, on both sides this time.

He's so lucky his asshattery didn't end up hurting someone.

[Kristev]

Forget the cartoon movies. Cars are the most terrifying thing there is nowadays. Well, aside from horses, snakes, and dogs.