Advice to Explorer Drivers

When I activate my turn signal in order to change lanes, it is an announcement, not merely of my intention--and it is never a request for permission--but of an event that WILL take place very shortly. When you speed up in an effort to block my lane change, be advised I do not intimidate easily. You will be required to follow through on your pretense and trade paint, at least, if you wish to change my mind. Do I make myself clear?

Explorer

You tell 'em Bubba

You make it clear that you're a danger to yourself and others while driving, yes.

Your turn signal doesn't mean other people have to get out of your way.

If you didn't drive such an overweight turd you wouldn't have to worry about people accelerating to block you. Of course they don't want to be stuck behind a huge overweight turn of a vehicle which why they speed up.

I see this behaviour sometimes, and I do not understand it. The drivers that try this speeding-up nonsense are usually in the passing lane but not passing anybody. They block traffic by driving at a slow speed or at the same speed as the driver in the right lane, until somebody tries to pull in front of them. Then they seem to be in a big hurry to accelerate, and tailgate anybody who gets in front of them, even trying to undertake the passing driver. Once the passing driver moves over, they speed up and then slow down, trying to get another driver to match speeds and block traffic again. Keep Right Except To Pass!

I agree, but I haven't noticed that behavior confined to drivers of small Japanese cars, pointless or otherwise.

This is a mirror-perfect reflection of the prevailing attitude in our society. Notice it's the guy in the SUV who is the "danger," not the little s*****ad in the econobox who SPEEDS UP TO BLOCK A LANE CHANGE.

Here are a couple of phenomena I have noticed on the road which may be applicable to your situation.

First, have you ever noticed how some people SLOW DOWN when they want to change lanes? I see this every single day: a car will be cruising along with the flow of traffic, then suddenly it will begin to slow for no apparent reason - there's no red light ahead, the vehicle is not in a turn lane, etc. Then the turn signal will come on, and the driver will plod along, going slower and slower, until somebody lets them in. The really amazing part is these people would have no problem merging if they would simply MAINTAIN SPEED instead of slowing down.

Anyway, I'm willing to bet that most of these Sloth Mergers don't even realize they are slowing down. My guess is they are completely focused on making the lane change and don't have any spare CPU cycles left to pay attention to their speed. To someone like this, it may very well APPEAR that the driver in the next lane is speeding up, when in fact the other driver is maintaining a steady speed and it is THEY who are slowing down.

Another big problem with merging stems from the folks who flip on their indicator and then SIT THERE for several seconds before they actually start to make their lane change. This leaves other drivers to wonder: "Is he really going to change lanes, or did he just bump the signal stalk by accident? And why is that bozo slowing down? Sheesh, I'd better speed up and get the hell away from this moron before he does something REALLY stupid..."

To avoid this problem, don't signal until you're ready to make your move, and then once you DO signal, make your move quickly and decisively. If you do that, then even those MFFYs who actually want to speed up and block you won't have the opportunity.

Whenever people complain about problems merging or changing lanes, more often than not it's the fault of the driver doing the complaining. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't any MFFYs in econoboxes who really will speed up and try to block your merge.

The bottom line is we don't have enough information to evaluate fault in the scenario you describe. Maybe the econobox driver is a MFFY, or maybe you're just an incompetent f*ck. Unless we can watch you both in action, we'll never know for sure.

I never said anything about the little s*****ad.

But the little s*****ad didn't come in here and brag about deliberately doing something stupid and dangerous.

What I am appalled by is that we've come so far in our society that anyone in here would applaud someone knowingly and deliberately proceeding with a lane change that has become unsafe.

Gkad to see that you left the, "x no-archive," thing turned off. Hopefully, some lawyer will have a field day with you and your net worth, Mr. Hallett.... Because it disrupts the flow of the conversation.

Why is top-posting frowned upon?

Well, here's your chance. How do you feel about someone who deliberately speeds up to block a lane change?

So do you believe that the OP should have been a JLEDI and backed off instead of standing his ground?

As I said in my other post, I don't know whom to applaud. But, unlike you, I don't know whom to denounce, either.

I think it's stupid and dangerous.

I think the original poster shouldn't have tried to complete a lane change when the space became insufficient. Because the circumstances don't matter in determining whether the maneuver was safe or not.

I do: both, but the original poster more. It's only an assumption that the other driver was acting deliberately.

Almost any one of us should know from experience that most people aren't aware enough of what is going on around them to act deliberately most of the time.

See post on 1-10-08 by C. E. White, entitled "Advice to Explorer Drivers," and un-knot your knickers. I doubt Explorer drivers are the only ones who exhibit the traits he mentioned, or the ones I parodied.

Blondes with great big SUV's and itty bitty cell phones, on the other hand....

Jack

So you would still denounce the econobox driver even if he were keeping a steady course and speed (one of the possible scenarios I outlined elsewhere)?

I'm not going to engage in discussing endless hypotheticals.

It's really quite simple: stating that you'll continue a lane change in the face of having the space you were planning to move into gone is stupid. Actually deliberately doing so is stupid and dangerous.

This is because they want to *win.* Never mind that there are 27 billion cars in front of them which puts them in 27 billion and 1th place. This is just like the people who speed up to get to the red light--the one who gets there first wins. They use more gas, put more wear on the car, and probably have a lot more incidents and pay more for insurance so I'm not sure what they think they are winning.

Why not?

Without solid facts about who did what, that's all we CAN do - either that, or just drop the topic.

We have solid facts about the original poster's actions.

And unless he lied, his actions were reckless driving, at the least.

I'm suppose to know to connect a post made in June with a most made in January?