"You're being a bad customer!"

[Becks]

I was listening to that song today...

[dispatch]

Note: The reason many people slow down, is many police officers do this when driving behind someone.

are they warming their tires for a chase?

[Cyanocobalamin]

While on the off-topic of tailgating....

I gotta share this story of my first time being given the one finger salute...

Left to right: HOV lane, left lane, middle lane, right lane exit only to I-5.
I am in the middle lane going about 65 with moderate traffic. I need to be in the middle lane to get past the I-5 off ramp and to my exit.

This fine specimen comes barreling down the HOV lane and eventually moves over behind me, tailgating me. Obviously she is trying to get me to drive faster. Problem: There is another vehicle in front of me. I can't go any faster! She flashes her headlights, then is able to move into the right lane.

Now this wasn't the best action from me, and I'm sure this pissed her off even more, but I tapped my brake slightly so I didn't lose too much speed but my brake lights would be on.....Actually since she was so close I didn't friggin' SEE the headlights right away. As she goes down the off-ramp she extends her left middle finger. I see this and kinda do a "go away" sort of with my right hand, but I'm not sure she saw it.

About a week later I swear I saw the exact same person/car doing the same behavior, only this time she hauled ass down the HOV lane, passing me, THEN cutting across all the lanes, just barely in time to make the off-ramp exit.

My ideal bumper sticker would read: "Don't tailgate me. I carry dihydrogen monoxide at all times."
(Systematic chemical name for good old Water, which kinda freaks some people out if they don't know what it means)

Yay, I feel so special, I got flipped off. Haha, this waste of oxygen and petrol, karma will get them eventually and they can lick my cat's butthole.

[Acolyte]

Ah...this makes me nostaligc for my Crown Vic. NOBODY plays road games with a potential cop car. (And, with friends that work at the plant building them, I'm trying to get ahold of some cop rims for it to boot. My final step to near-total dominance of Whitehorse's roads...)

However, people tend to enjoy screwing around with my friend's van. However, he being as lead-footed as I am, usually loses them. However, one time was the exception. This was in January, and in a pretty substancial snowstorm. Combine that with the fact that the snowplows hadn't made it to this stretch yet, and we were going a bit below the speed limit. So, you know, we didn't die. I wasn't willing to risk life and limb for a box of Tau. Some guy in a POS little Focus comes barrelling up the road, and rides our bumper for about 5 minutes. Finally, he floor it and passes us. But, in an amazing act of Ultimate Retribution, he proceeded to do a very spectacular fishtail, spin, and dive into the ditch right in front of us. I was clapping, and pointed and laughed as we went by. Sucker.

[protege]

Ah...this makes me nostaligc for my Crown Vic. NOBODY plays road games with a potential cop car. (And, with friends that work at the plant building them, I'm trying to get ahold of some cop rims for it to boot. My final step to near-total dominance of Whitehorse's roads...)

Around here though, very few police departments used unmarked cars as intercepters anymore. In recent years, a few imposters were trying to pull people over on some of the highways. As that was going on, the news media warned everyone about it...with the end result that nobody was stopping for *legit* cops in those cars. What unmarked cars are left, are pretty obvious--the spotlights (not blue/red lights...but a spotlight mounted on the A pillar), and the white "MG" (municipal) plates.

Just yesterday, I had some redneck on the parkway flip me off. This idiot was doing *barely* 45mph in a gravel truck in the right lane. Since traffic usually moves anywhere from 50-70 () nearly everybody passed him. I wasn't going nearly that fast, maybe about 60 when I got my chance. I moved into the left lane, got well past him, then put my signal on to get back into the right lane. No sooner had I done that, he started blowing his horn and flipped me off. And yes, I did flip him off in return

Apparently, I'm supposed to know that he wanted in the *left* lane and couldn't be bothered with signaling

[greensinestro]

That story is too funny!

This reminds me of my friend who decided to stop in at the Publix near the retirement community. Big mistake there. All he wanted was a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, so after he gets these items, he gets in line. His turn comes, and right as he was getting up there, a nasty 70 some year old woman with a zillion items in her cart gets in line and bumps him with the cart. "Young man! Why are you in this line when you should be in the express line?" He responded that this was the first line he came to and that it was empty when he got there, plus it was none of her business why he decided to not use the express line. She then bumped him one more time, to where he shoved the cart back at her, telling her to stop. Then, not satisfied with himself, he told the cashier he forgot something and left the line to get a container of cottage cheese, which he really did not need. When he came back five minutes later, he went to pay and told the cashier, "Oh, I"m sorry, my money is out in my truck." Five more minutes pass (with this lady still waiting in line), and he comes back into the store with the ashtray from his truck, full of his spare change. He very carefully and slowly counts the change needed for these items, and while doing so, purposely drops the change on the floor! The cashier by this time is fighting to keep a straight face, and my friend is having the time of his life. Meanwhile, this nasty old lady is still in line when there are other lines she could have moved to by now. Twenty minutes from the time he got in line to the time this lady bumped him with the cart, he finally checked out.

Great bit of revenge, if you ask me. I wish I had thought of it.

[dispatch]

forget cold, that calibur of revenge can be found in the frozen section

[ladodger34]

Ah...this makes me nostaligc for my Crown Vic. NOBODY plays road games with a potential cop car. (And, with friends that work at the plant building them, I'm trying to get ahold of some cop rims for it to boot. My final step to near-total dominance of Whitehorse's roads...)

My mom and dad have a dark gray Crown Vic. I had someone pass me at night (ie it was dark and hard to tell whether it was a police car or not) on the right on a one-lane street. Aside from being a really stupid move, I certainly wouldn't pull something like that when anything resembling a police car is around.

Then again, this person passed so they could make it two seconds faster to their apartment building that was about 2 blocks away. I'm guessing logic isn't in their playbook.

[Jester]

"I've already got my cart in here!"

“Ya know, I hear they have these new things out nowadays, that they attach to the bottoms of carts. They’re called wheels. Have you heard of them?”

25 and I dont even have a learners!

One of my good friends (known her for close to 20 years now) did not start driving, at all, until 25. Now, rather than fly, she drives from her home in Texas to Los Angeles for photo/film shoots. (She recently became an “adult film entertainer”; aka a porn star. Seriously. Don’t think that that is related to the long wait to get a license, though.)

I noticed we were a mile or so from a likely radar trap, and timed my move to the middle lane perfectly. He roared past, middle finger held high. In his rear window was a carved wooden hand that was *also* flipping the bird!

A mile and a half down the highway, there he was, pulled over by the State Patrol. I waved and smiled as I went past.

Hilarious, especially for me, as I had a short story of mine printed in my high school literature magazine my sophomore year (my first of three high schools) that details almost that exact scenario.


Speaking of cops and their cars, I have two stories related to that, both involving the drive up I-10 from Tucson to Phoenix.

Once, at night, making that drive, I was tooling along in my old Dodge Shadow Turbo, and saw Ford lights coming up behind me. I considered downshifting and trying to race the guy, but at the last minute, decided against it. Only when he passed me did I realize that it was an Arizona Highway Patrol Mustang. I got lucky on that one.

Another time, during the day, my friend “Maguyver” and myself were coming back to Phoenix from Tucson, in his car. His car was a Chevy Celebrity, a former cop car, still with the cop engine. In other words, gobs of power. His nickname of Maguyver came from the fact that he could fix anything to his specs, including this car, which was tuned at the time for speed and power, not fuel efficiency. (This was back in the day of dollar-a-gallon gas in the early nineties.) Now, I am driving Former Cop Car, and he is literally upside down in the front seat, with his head under the dash, trying to fix the malfunctioning radio. And I am doing about, oh, 140 mph.

I have to tell you, when you are driving a white car that has the exact same grill as most cop cars, and you are moving at that rate, people Get Out Of Your Way. Fast. Incidentally, driving on a freeway at 140 where most everyone else is doing 70 is vaguely like driving through a parking lot at 70. Not for the faint of heart. But a whole hell of a lot of fun! To date, that is still the fastest I have ever driven, and the second fastest speed in a car to which I have been a passenger.