To the lady driving the Kia Soul.
I know you didn’t see what I saw. Your car is small, my truck is large and blocked your view of what was ahead. You may have seen the large tractors mowing the expansive median area on the South Mo-Pac Expressway around the 290/360 interchange, but I know you didn’t see the one that I saw. That as I came around that corner at the bottom of the hill, that one of the mowers was in the left lane of traffic. That I had to hit my brakes to ensure I didn’t hit it. But you couldn’t have seen it because 1. my truck was in your face, 2. the mower was off the road within seconds of me seeing it.
Of course, the only reason my truck was in your face was because you were tailgating me.
Perhaps if you weren’t tailgating me, you might have seen the mower. Certainly if you weren’t tailgating me, you wouldn’t have almost ended up going up my tailpipe.
I look back at the situation and I guess all that reckless “revenge” driving was trying to make a point to me. You must have thought my sudden application of the brakes was to tell you to back off; no, it wasn’t but I can see how you would have taken it that way. All that honking. All the reckless zooming in and out of other cars in an effort to “teach me a lesson”. Then your final “fuck you asshole” move of aggressively cutting me off, of course flipping me the bird as you did so. It’s evident you weren’t thinking straight, because just before you cut me off it was evident you were going to do that, so I applied my brakes to slow down. Had I not, your rear bumper would have clipped my car — your judgment was off in many ways — and you would have been pushed sideways and likely you and the little doggie in your lap would have been t-boned and probably end up in the hospital, at best. That’s not a threat; that’s physics.
Yes my initial reaction was one of anger, because you put me and my son’s life in danger for no good reason. I let the anger go, because I realized there was no point in holding it. I did however get your license plate and reported you to 911 as a reckless driver. I don’t know if anything came of it, but it was the best I could do.
Actually I can do better. There are lessons to be learned from your mistakes.
Don’t be an asshole.
Don’t tailgate.
Don’t put yourself in dangerous situations. If you do, don’t blame someone else if things go pear shaped.
Before blaming someone else for all your problems, look first at yourself to see what you may have done wrong and could have done better.
Be slow to anger — not just on the road, but anywhere in life. The immediate situation may not be something you appreciate, but perhaps it was keeping you from a greater danger.
And I need to buy a hitch ball and mount. Bought one. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 
I personally feel that those sorts of situations should be considered “assault with a deadly weapon”, but… 😉 Sounds like you handled it appropriately. Amazing how much more you can see about the road situation sitting up high, isn’t it? I feel claustrophobic and blind when I drive my wife’s car, now….
I’ll just say that I love my truck. 🙂
I have to admit to tailgating, its an old habit from learning to drive in the Boston area, but I’m working on breaking the habit, now I mostly only tailgate when someone’s doing 10 under the speed limit for no obvious reason. On the other hand if they slam on the brakes its my own fault for being so close behind them!
“no obvious reason”. That was the problem in this situation, from what I can tell, that the reason for me doing what I did wasn’t obvious to her. And look at the problem it caused.
Certainly I am subject to this myself… but it’s something I’ve been working on, because we just can’t know someone else’s situation in life, especially someone we’re just passing on the road.
its not THAT hard to slide sideways a little (on most roads anyway) and see whats in front of that big vehicle in front of me, and if you slam on your brakes and a second later there’s something on the side of the road its a good bet that something is the reason the brakes got hit….
That would require thinking. Something this lady apparently wasn’t very good at at that moment.
Screw the ball, I want like a 3 foot metal spike to mount in the receiver.
Oh that’d be fine, but I think the police would have a problem with it.
I’m with you in spirit.
There are these:
http://www.gggaz.com/claymore-mine-trailer-hitch-cover.html
But the problem with them is you have to know what they are for them to be effective. Many people won’t get it.
“Don’t be an asshole.
Don’t tailgate.
Don’t put yourself in dangerous situations. If you do, don’t blame someone else if things go pear shaped.”
3 simple precepts that, if followed, would prevent an ass-load of calamity.
So true.
I thought about this some more and we should probably cut her some slack. I wouldn’t want anyone to see me driving a Kia either. She was in a hurry to park it.
Zing!
There’s a nice Zen lesson here, chill. What you see is what you see, not what is. It’s really rather cosmic. It’s hard to not believe that all we know is all there is. So when someone cuts you off, cut them some slack. You really have no idea why they’re doing it. My favorite is the time I blew by an ambulance. Met the driver at the emergency room. 5 minutes later. He was cool. “Ah, I was wondering why you were in such a hurry.” He found out I was rushing my son to the hospital. I beat the damn ambulance. 🙂 So, don’t rush to judgment. Assume the best. Life’s a lot sweeter. If they’re assholes, they’ll define their own life that way and fill it with sorrow without you having to do a thing.
Amen to that.
Beautiful post, Jim.