What do you do next?

[C_nate]

Just wondering how people respond to certain situations. This is something that happened on my home from work this morning. I'll write down how mine played out below in white. Highlight it to read what a horrible person I am.

It's a quarter to 7 am, you are near the end of your drive home after a typical 8 hour shift at work. You don't feel particularly one way or the other, you feel fine.

Five more minutes and you'll be home. You are quite looking forward to it since you decided to stop and pick up some breakfast for the kids and you know they will be happy.

You are driving down a side street and a block away from the intersection you see an older lady, somewhere in the late 50's to maybe mid 60's range walking two little rat dogs.

As you are driving by her, she holds up two fingers on her left hand and five fingers on her right and and is wildly and expressively mouthing the number "twenty five" at you.

What happens next for you?





I don't know why, maybe it was something about her face, but after about a second, I stopped about 10 feet past her. I took a moment to process what just happened because for some reason I had this feeling of disbelief that it had just happened.

I looked back and she was still standing there looking at me.

I put the car in reverse (there was no traffic around at this hour) and backed up and rolled down my window.

"What was that?" I asked, but my mind was already back up to speed and I had a good idea what the answer was going to be.

"The speed limit is twenty five, this is a res-i-den-tial street." She put emphasis on each syllable.

"You got a speedometer on you?

"You don't have to be a genius to know you were speeding. If you want to do 40 go on the other street"

"First of all, I was going no where near that and second of all, you can go 5 miles over and no one cares."

"There are children here! There is a preschool right over there!"

"Preschool at 6:45 am? Are you out of your mind right now?"

"How would you like it if I went to your street and was fucking speeding around?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"This is my home, I live here!"

"Yeah, I live around here too, why don't you trying minding your own fucking business next time."

The light turns green at the intersection.

"FUCK. YOU." I yell as I floor it and leave her in the dust.

99 times out of 100 I probably would've never stopped, but there was just something about her that irked me. The sad thing was that she was probably hoping for a confrontation and I made it happen for her. I'm guessing any old person that yells at cars passing by doesn't get much social interaction in their life.

Well, that was my morning. HAPPY FRIDAY!

 

[De-Ting]

Not too long ago, I probably would have reacted similarly. More recently, however, I've been able to just smile and nod whenever someone tries confronting me.

Some time ago a guy in a truck was intentionally cutting off people on a busy road close to my house. I watched him do it a couple of times before I passed him, but then, out of the blue, he speeds up, cuts me off, and flips me off. What did I do? I rode his tail up to the next stop light, blasting my horn continuously. He gave me another bird, then adjusted his mirror so he could stare back at me and applaud my performance. I just sat there, stone-faced, and kept honking. After a while, I noticed a woman and her two kids in a convertible next to me. Who do you think those kids were staring at?

I'm not sure when, but some time after that, I just decided it's more satisfying to be able to take it on the chin and reward hostility with undeterred calmness and politeness. Leave looking like an idiot to the actual idiots.

 

[madster111]

Depends on my mood at the time.
Old man came running full force down his driveway waving a shovel around after i topped out 1st for a second in my old XR6T, only doing like 65km/h, problem was i was in a completely shit mood hence the topping out 1st
Slammed on the brakes, came to a stop, 1st gear, full throttle, dropped the clutch.
Left 2 fat ass lines for about 200m.

Most of the time though if someone's a dickhead while i'm driving i'll just keep going. Getting my tunez on helps.

 

[Master_Craig]

Eh, if I were you C_nate, I would have just ignored her and kept driving. In your defence though, you just came off a night shift work, you're tired as hell, you just wanna go home with no trouble and she pissed you off. On one hand, she maybe had a point, but she was being a bit of an arrogant arse about it.

Here in Australia, a school zone speed limit is 40 km/h, which is slow as. But it only applies between the times of 7 AM - 5 PM. I assume over where you are, you guys probably have a similar system... in any case, her argument about children and whatnot isn't a strong one because legally, you would have been doing the right speed during the right time zone, if that makes sense.

I try to keep my cool when driving, I try to obey the road laws, but it shits me off when people do stupid shit, then get angry at you if you respond. One time I was driving in a single lane road, and this guy behind me was driving right up my arse, honking his horn and expecting me to go faster. I was doing the speed limit, 60 km/h, I wasn't going to go faster. The idiot then tries to over take me, despite being a single lane road. We eventually get onto two lanes, and he speeds right past me, giving me the finger and mouthing off a certain "C" word. In an angry response, I beep at him and give him the finger.

He speeds up ahead, pulls over roughly, gets out of his car and starts waving at me and yelling. I just drove past him and left him behind.

The guy was clearly impatient and probably in a hurry, but the fact that he was recklessly driving, putting himself and others at risk, then he pulled over to try and have an argument or/and a fight with me about it? What the hell is up with people?

Another time I was driving and was going through a round about. Someone on the left was supposed to wait and give way, but instead pulled out in front of me and cut me off. If I didn't stop/slow down, I would have hit him. I honked my horn, he gives me the finger and shouts "Fuck you" out of his window.

I don't understand people.