🚀 go-pugleaf

dv wrote:
> 
> nkibe wrote:
> >
> > >I sometimes hear complaints that people are angry when someone comes
> > >up behind them, flashes their lights to indicate their desire to pass.
> 
>         This is sometimes due to the way people flash to pass. 90% of the time
> it has happened to me, I was passing a guy on a two lane road, some guy
> comes up at high velocities (usually 20-30 mph over the speed limit),
> gets about a foot, sometimes less, to the point where I can't even see
> his lights, flashes me, and I guess expects me to 1)turn into the
> concrete barrier on my left, 2)turn right into the guy I'm passing, or
> 3)floor it. You better believe I'm gonna bitch if people are going to
> drive like a**holes who think they own the road. If they're couteous
> about it, then I don't mind, but most people I've experienced aren't
> quite that way.

I agree, the above technique is not a good one. If you are closing on
someone who is obviously passing another, slower moving car, the only
polite thing to do is slow down and wait for him/her to complete the
pass. Only when the other driver has more than enough space to move
over, and has not done so, should you flash. 

I've actually noticed that the flash-to-pass process tends to work
pretty well. Often, I have been the second in a two car trail moving in
the left lane at fairly high speeds, only to come up on a driver clearly
hogging the left lane. Now, at this point what usually happens is that
the bonehead in front of me gives the slowpoke no chance to move over.
Instead, this Fittipaldi wannabe will simply cut right as soon as he
can, often cutting off other drivers. It gives me great pleasure, after
this manifest display of ignorance, to give the left-lane bandit a
polite flash, whereupon he moves over, and I proceed to accelerate past
the guy who thinks he's driving at Daytona.  

OTOH, there are imbeciles out there who will not respond to any amount
of light flashing. The other day, I came up on a Buick of indeterminate
vintage travelling at 60 mph in the left lane (65mph speed limit). I
myself was proceeding about 80. There was no other traffic to speak of.
Now, I could have easily moved to the right and gone around, but I was a
bit offended (and AFAIK passing on the right is not so legal in MI). So
I waited a bit, not on his ass or anything, just hanging there, and then
gave him a flash. Nothing. I gave him another. No response. One more,
and then a longer one. Nope. Horn toot. No. Horn honk. No. Horn honk
accompanied by flashing lights. Nothing yet. Several horn honks,
accompanied by light flashes, to the beat of the music that I was
listening to. Uh-uh. By then, I was a bit frustrated, so I maneuvered my
big red car (which w/ all the light flashing and horn honking was about
as low profile as a nuclear bomb) into the right lane, and accelerated
by. As I motored past, I noticed two things about the Buick: 1) No
inside mirror 2) The guy was talking on a cell phone. Probably telling
the person on the other end about the psycho in the red Taurus who was
trying to run him off the road. IMHO, that man should sell his phone and
buy a mirror.

Whatever.


Joshua Turner
97 Taurus SHO (which, though red, apparently can travel in stealth mode)