ALT-2 What to do if someone Drives too Close behind you
There are a lot of poor driving habits that bother the common commuter. We of course being common commuters, are likely as guilty as the next person of these violations. But there's perhaps no more annoying behavior than when someone is tailgating you. I've seen lots of different ways of dealing with this problem, to varying degrees of effectiveness.
It's pretty common to tap the brake when someones right on your back bumper. I guess the theory is, by making them think they have to stop suddenly, it may expose to them the issue that they don't really have enough room to ensure they can. This should make them see the errors of their ways and cause them to make the necessary adjustments. Sometimes it works and sometimes it only serves to anger them further.
I was a delivery driver a few years back and was on a really busy major road that had a speed limit of 60kph. I got stuck behind an old lady and her friend that were going almost 40kph. Suffice as to say, I was tailgating her, just as everyone behind me was tailgating each other in a quickly lengthening line of aggravation. She decided to stop her car in the middle of the road, stare into the rear view mirror and make a shoo-shoo gesture with a flick of her hand.
This enraged everyone in the line who immediately started into a chorus of horn blowing and shouted threats. I laid on my horn too, displaying my firm commitment to the gang mentality and chose to see that horn blowing and raise them some highbeam flashing. She started forward again and turned off into the first available parking lot, which was the first thing I saw her do that made any sense at all. If you can't safely go fast, don't. If you can't safely do the speed limit, stay off the road. Going 20kph under is not really any safer than going 20 kph over, if you're the only one doing it.
But what if you're doing the speed limit or slightly more and someone starts riding your bumper anyways? I have one friend who takes his foot off the gas and lets his car slow down just to 'stick it to them'. I don't see much of a point in this. I tend to ignore them altogether. I won't go faster and I don't slow down or even tap the brakes. If they do rear end me, it's entirely their fault and that's good enough for me. We should all be fine in our SUV. But the whole time I'll probably be asking myself, 'Where's a cop when you need one?' They really should hand out more tickets for that.
