I’m cruising with the flow of traffic at about 45 MPH, about 3 or 4 carlengths behind the truck in front of me. I glance in the rearview mirrow and notice a guy in a Jeep pulling up close behind me. I can sense his urgency. And I know he can spot the space in front of me, that it’s triggering a “slow driver” alert in his brain, even though I’m going as fast as possible along with everyone else on this packed but flowing freeway at the moment.
By continuing to glance in my rearview mirror, I can see him glancing in his rearview mirrors, looking for an opening in the right traffic lane so he can pass me and wedge into the space in front of me that I’ve carved out, thereby getting him to his urgent destination .001 of a second faster.
He makes his move and starts to pass. Bastard! I accelerate, closing up the gap in front of me, preventing him from squeezing into my precious space. I keep my eyes straight ahead, pretending to be oblivious. I don’t want to actually trigger a roadrage incident but I kind of like the idea of coming close to one. I just want to piss him off a little bit. I’m right, after all.
And then I catch myself, decelerate, and let him in. I know what it’s like to be like he appears to be … cocky, in a frantic hurry, intolerant of pokey drivers, a risk taker. It’s not a pleasant way to be, but it’s understandable. I don’t help matters by rubbing it in his face. And we both could end up triggering a chain of events that hurts others.
Teenage female drivers seem to “tailgate” more than any other group. One day I hit my brakes suddenly for no reason other than to scare hell out of the gal behind me. She was following so close I could see the color of her eyes.
Anyway, I could hear her tires screeching as I watched in the mirror. She stayed far back after that.
It was dumb thing for me to do since I could have caused harm to her and others. So, I won’t do it again. But boy did it feel good!
Yep, satisfying but definitely dumb, Bob. You may have taught her a lesson, but unfortunately, there are a lot more out there. 😉
It was brand new, Black, (of course), paid cash for it, $2725 dollars, ‘out the door’. A brand new 1974 Harley Davidson Sportster. My first Harley was a 1954 Hummer, 125 cc. two stroke, the last time I rode it was in June 1960 just before I went into the Army. A lot happened between 1960 and 1974.
I admit it may have been an ego thing, however I honestly think that the two or three times in my life that these kind of things occured were not really ego based. I think of them as temporary insanity.
It was a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon, 257 miles on my new Harley, still learning how to ride, again, that much weight and roll on horsepower. Wow, this is good. My buddy Jim was behind me on his ‘brand new’ 650 Yamaha. I sold it to him after putting around 275 miles on it so that I could buy another Harley. It was an absolutely beautiful day. A guy in a 4 door 1976-77 Dodge who had been following us came up on Jim’s rear wheel and he almost went down. The Dodge then floored it flying past me with his pedal to the floor. I did my first sporster burn out. I caught up to the guy just before the top of a hill riding on the wrong side of the street, around 60 mph or so, still accelerating next to his front fender when I leaned the bike towards his front fender, stood up on my left footpeg and lifted off the seat enough to land a well placed karate kick to his fender just above his front wheel while doing a very interesting balance/focal impact calculation kick/lean the bike balancing act while holding the sportster throttle . . and fortunatley, no one was coming over the hill. The Dodge fender caved in before my eyes, the Dodge went into the ditch and came back onto the road in front of me still accelerating. I did have enough sense left to sit back down on the bike slow down and get back into my lane. The Dodge sped off never to be seen again.
I like to think that the morons driving out there just might learn to stay the hell away from a motorcycle. You do know, those guy’s are nuts in the first place, to ride a motorcylce and all.
I risked my life to make a point? Ego ? Whose ?
Not mine . . I was assigned to an Engineer Battalion in APO 8,Chun-Chon,Korea and then the
815th/Heavy Construction/Combat Engineers in El Paso,Texas when Marty’s song just came out.
I’m not that crazy, am I ?
ron
p.s. never got the bastards license plate number . . fortunatley.
Great story, Animal. Ron?
Temporary insanity? Naw. Ego? Yeah! I’ll expound on it.