inappropriate response: Car Tails

January 15, 2003

Car Tails Dave Trowbridge is addressing one of my pet peeves - tailgating. Yes, slow drivers are annoying. They may have a reason for driving slowly. Or they may just be being pissants. But even if the latter is true, tailgating will not make them accelerate. And the driver's pissantry does not abrogate the laws of physics governing stopping distances. I'm convinced those of the tailgating persuasion do not grasp this until after a visceral demonstration involving plowing into an offending slowpoke. (I have derived my visceral annoyance with tailgaters from being a passenger in the car of a driver thusly illuminated.)

His description of his faithful but failing Cherokee evokes a tear of nostalgia for our late lamented 1978 Honda Accord. It was performing loyally at the 270,000 mile mark; we gave it up to a charity only because we were moving overseas and couldn't take it with us. I wouldn't be surprised if that noble machine was still chugging over an icy Loveland Pass or up to the Eisenhower Tunnel, just like the old days - getting us through while haughty, hubris-filled FWDs lay strewn along the sides of the highway. < sniff >

Posted by Moira Breen at January 15, 2003 08:45 PM

Comments

I agree that tailgating is annoying, except when I do it, and I only do it when it's necessary. But if someone is tailgating me, I usually pull over and let him pass, because I have nothing to gain from confrontation. I figure I'm better off letting hotheaded idiots drive away from me rather than trying to force them to stay in my vicinity. However, if, as sometimes happens, I am tailgated by a cop, I consider it my civic duty to drive in the left lane, observing all speed limits.

Posted by: Jonathan on January 16, 2003

We get a lot of that in the DC area. People seem to think city roads are their chance to practice for NASCAR. We either slow *way* down, turn on the emergency lights, or both. It works fairly well in getting some clearance. I see similar ideas by Trowbridge and a commenter.

It may be our biases at work, but it seems like SUVs are doing it more than their share of the time, at least around here. (There you go: a can of wriggling worms, free of charge!)

Posted by: Thomas Nephew on January 18, 2003

...it seems like SUVs are doing it more than their share of the time...

yeah, I don't know if it's selection bias or not (do I just tend to notice it more when drivers of SUV's/monster pickups behave like jackholes?), but there does seem to be a correlation there.

Posted by: David Fleck on January 20, 2003

What I hate is the people who tailgate when there is no opportunity to move out of their way -- i.e., rush hour traffic and you're boxed in on all sides and the average rate of highway speed is 50 mph. What supernatural powers do they think I possess that I can leap over traffic or highway medians? I mean, just WHERE am I supposed to go?

Posted by: cj on January 22, 2003

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