If you are going to watch 1 youtube video today....

If you seen the video, you'll know it's not a Prius. It may be a Jeep.

 

Can't resist including this video of a fictitious road rager getting his just rewards. Note the Defensive Driving lecture.

 

Many states have signs and laws that state:

Slower Drivers
Keep Right

Period.

 

Did you see my post #11 above? The driver had to make a left turn on a 55MPH highway at an intersection about a mile down the road. If she was doing 60, she would have to be in the left lane a good distance ahead.

The driver has now added a detailed description of the incident at YouTube, which I'll quote here as giving a link will just show the video.

Published on Mar 26, 2014
This happened to me on SR 41 in Tampa on Monday March 24th. This pathetic excuse for a human being tailgated me for about three minutes. After about a minute, and me shaking my head, I pulled out my phone and started recording. I couldn't move over because there were trucks in the right lane, and I sure as heck wasn't going to speed on a rainy day with the roads being as slick as they were. I was turning left in about a half-mile when this happened. Now bear in mind, that this guy had already passed a truck in a left turn lane, was tailgating and driving recklessly on a wet slick road, wasn't paying attention, and all in all being an ignorant nice person. Not once was I mouthing off, I never brake checked him, and in fact until I watched the video after the accident I didn't even know he shot a bird at me because I wasn't looking at him at all, I was paying attention to the road while holding the phone up with my right hand. I've recorded circumstances like this before, catching idiots doing stupid things, but never ever had this happen.

He initially fled the scene of the accident, but thanks to this video he has been caught and charged. Massive props to the Sheriffs Department and most especially the Highway Patrol who responded to the scene. This moron could have easily killed somebody with his moronic behavior, and my laughing at the end would have been replaced with tears. Needless to say though, I've never seen Karma come back so fast.

 

I find no fault to the driver capturing the video. Just because an idiot behind you wants to go faster doesn't mean you have to speed just to satisfy that person behind you. Ever since first getting a hybrid many years ago, I noticed a lot more people riding my bumper and trying to pass me even though I don't drive any slower than when I was driving the V8 truck I had before first getting a hybrid Civic. I personally believe a lot of "road rage" over hybrid and EV drivers has more to due with a psychological impact on other drivers than any real world impact due to slower driving habits. Since I drove a truck, I was "one of them" and no one passed me. I get a hybrid and even while doing 10 mph over the speed limit, I get people trying to push past me only to hit the brakes and slow down a few hundred feet later. Psychology is a fascinating subject. This is just an example of it.

 

I had someone take my picture the other day. I guess it was because I would not let her move form the left lane to the right lane. two or three times she crossed the centerline and I tapped the horn to let her know i was there.

She only put the turn signal on after I passed her. I saw her waving her hands and saw a flash. so I went to the left lane let her pull up beside me, rolled down the tinted windows and smiled for her.. did not see a second flash. the funny thing. about 1/2 mile later she moves to the left lane and turns left.

so she was in the proper lane all along...

go figure...

 

And yet felt driving with one hand wasn't going to be a problem. She didn't do anything wrong, but I'm just saying missing your turn to let the guy pass isn't a big deal when you don't know if they are just an nice person or a true nutjob.

The truck driver deserved what he got, just like the black Prius that passed me on a highway shoulder and clipped the corner of my bumper deserved the huge white scratches on his rear quarter panel. Wish I had a dash cam then, but it wasn't worth pulling out the phone while doing 60mph.

 

Sorry, but I just can't enjoy that video too much.

Too close to being a tragedy that could of hurt others.

Great that nobody was hurt, but it's really an example of bad driving and social skills from everybody involved including the person videoing the incident.

Instant Karma was being kind to everyone involved. But I don't see much to laugh about here. Just a slight variable here or there and that whole thing is a whole lot uglier and potentially tragic.

 

one of my all time. "got what they deserved" videos..

 

Is this thread getting too serious?

I saw the entire video and looked at some of the posts, so it was more than skimming, but sorry - I don't have a couple of hours to see every angle.

My point: the F250 driver is like a number of other similar drivers I face in Texas with anger management issues. I don't try to start something with them and may even go over the PSL a bit, but they are still itching for a fight.

 

I have actually seen that happen to a guy in a pickup... funny as all hell.

 

If who you really are is when you think you are anonymous/unaccountable, the highways as depicted in the video are a sad commentary of the human condition.

 

Well, I don't think of my self and anonymous when I drive. My vehicle has a license plate that identifies who I am. And unaccountable? I NEVER take that attitude or viewpoint when I drive. Infact I strive for just the opposite. I'm accountable for EVERY move I make while driving.

But that's exactly why I don't really enjoy this video too much. You've got a LOT that both parties, BOTH parties are doing wrong.

I'm not expecting perfection from myself or others. Humans ya know. I fail at this often...but I was taught that you should never drive with your emotions. Again, I fail at this from time to time. And I also see somebody driving 50 mph, while trying to video tape others around him with one hand. That's not wise.

And as tempted as I might be to simply laugh when the aggressive truck driver spins out and crosses the oncoming traffic to come to a stop on a grassy median, I just see too many subtle but possible variables that could of been in play, and would of made that whole couple of seconds nothing but a complete tragedy.

 

^ Good that you and most drivers realize they are in public, but a significant few shave or do makeup in the car, eat, etc... Per the video, some think they can road rage without penalty. Remember that Walmart thread of people that forgot to dress up even a little bit?

 

The pickup driver was identified and arrested thanks to the video

'Redneck Road Rage' video captures Jeffrey Travis White giving the finger then crashing truck [VIDEO] - UPI.com

 

They need to add a 6th > 5 Fun Ways to Absolutely Ruin Your Truck « F150online.com

Opps! It won't be fun

• 5M hits of this video on YouTube as of this morning.
• Charged with fleeing and accident, destroying a median lampost.
• May lose his driver's licence....had two prior convictions.
• If he does not lose his insurance, it will be very high.
• The publicity might cost him his job.

my insert: as his wheels crash into the median lamp post

 

I wish this had happened to the moron in the pre-2007 Corolla on the highway from Sydney to Canberra on Saturday.

I'd seen him cut dangerously in front of people at least five times before I caught up to him and tailgate several others (this is a common thing in Australia - people are terrible highway drivers, and they'll often drive aggressively, tailgating and lane-changing without actually going much over the speed limit. He swung in front of me as I was about to pass him - I came within a foot of hitting him. I beeped, as one does, and flashed my lights. He slammed his brakes on. Then he pulled into the slow lane and let me passed, and then whipped straight in behind me, tailgating me with less than a metre between us. Then he switched back into the slow lane, accelerated, and tried to run me off the road, into the central reservation. My kids were in the car, and I didn't want to put them at risk. I knew if I slowed down to avoid a confrontation, he would slow down too, and try to force me off the road. I knew if I stopped, he'd get out and attack me, with his three big psycho tattooed friends, because they had made that pretty clear with what they were shouting out of the window. I knew that if I stuck to the speed limit, I'd have this f-wit trying to run me off the road for the rest of the journey, and that if I stayed within sight of him, he would follow me into a service station when the kids needed a toilet break.

We were on a fairly steep uphill section, and he was driving an old 1.5-litre Corolla with him and three heavy-set steroid-abuse victims, so it was clear that he didn't have much capacity to accelerate. There wasn't much traffic in front of me, so I took the safest option: the speed limit in NSW is 110km/h (70mph-ish), and I sped up to 155, and kept going until I was a good couple of kilometres clear of him, so he couldn't see me. Then I slowed down to my normal speed again. I did not want to have to speed to that degree, but it was my only safe option.

I don't know whether it's the same in America, but here, the police are completely obsessed with speed, over everything else. They'll pull you over, and you'll get loads of points, for doing 130km/h on an empty freeway in clear weather when there's a 110 limit. You'll get banned for doing, I think, 140. But they do nothing about aggressive tailgating, brake-checking, dangerous lane-changing, driving at speeds that are inappropriate for the conditions (see below), or any of the things that are actually dangerous. If road safety were actually the authorities' priority, there'd be lots of unmarked police cars with cameras, and people would get pulled for driving dangerously. But it's cheaper and more profitable to have them sitting in the hedges with radar guns.

I think the problem in Australia is that people really don't do much freeway driving, so when they're on one, they haven't got a clue how to drive safely. Although we have lots of wide-open spaces, most people rarely drive out of their own city - it's too far from one city to the next, so people drive around their own city, and fly if their visiting another city. There's no training for freeway driving, and they have no practice, so they're completely useless.

I mentioned driving at speeds that are inappropriate for the conditions earlier. I drive at a speed which exceeds the limit, but which is not going to get me pulled. Lots of people drive at exactly 110, because they've been told by the Police that that's the safe thing to do because it is the speed limit. On the way back from Canberra yesterday, I passed lots of cars that were going at exactly 110, in clear conditions. Then we hit a sudden, absolutely torrential storm. Like the other experienced drivers on the road (who, like me, had mostly been going a little over the limit in the clear weather), I slowed down, and drove at a speed appropriate to how far I could see and how my tyres would perform: I dropped to just under 70km/h. And all the people we'd passed who were doing exactly 110km/h in the clear conditions passed us, driving through these sheets of rain with less than 50 metres' visibility. They'd carried on driving at exactly 110, because they'd been told by the Police that driving at the speed limit is the safe thing to do.

I think the highway driving here is actually worse than in China. It's astonishingly bad.

But it's the aggression that's the worst thing - people like the guy in PriusGuy32's YouTube clip. The worst thing is the M4, from the Western suburbs into the city, on a Saturday evening. There are groups of men in their teens and early 20s (and some even older) driving into the city in lowered Holden and Ford V8s, all of the cars quite old, with modified (dodgy) suspension and questionable after-market, or old and inadequate, brakes. They're all on their way into the city to vent some of their 'roid rage, and either beat each other up, or find some gay people or non-white people to beat up. But they can't wait till they get into the city to vent that rage, so they look for Priuses, or cars with kids in the back, or old people in Hondas, or cars driven by young women on their own, or whatever, and start with the tailgating and the brake-checking and the shouted threats out of the window and the trying to run people off the road. And there are always terrible crashes, every Saturday evening. But.... they're usually driving at the speed limit, so the Police do nothing.

 

Having installed front and rear viewing, dashcam with GPS in each car, I'm fairly calm about such things. Being a Prius driver, I've learned how to 'get stuck' behind large trucks, pickups towing trailers, and other ordinary, slow vehicles. But occasionally, I don't have cover.

So I'm used to driving using both my front windshield and rear-view mirror. If I see someone coming up and making no attempt to change to the passing lane, if possible, I change. Daily, I'm amused to see someone who at a car length or two behind me, will speed up to pass me on the right instead of maintaining their speed and passing correctly. Burning up their gas money, I just smile.

Do folks look for Prius to pester? Not so much since before the recession. Back then gas was cheap and folks were in a hurry to burn it up. That or now I just don't care.

In this case, I suspect even if she had taken the right lane and slowed down to 10 mph, the jerk might have just followed and behaved badly. About 10 years ago, we had a road rage incident near Birmingham where two drivers, both women, pulled off the interstate and parked on the off ramp. One shot and killed the other.

Bob Wilson

 

I wonder what were the charges.
One thing I noticed, that there is a lot of injustice in daily life and authorities don't care. As soon as a story goes viral one way or another, the authorities are amazingly quick to react.