How to deal with scum drivers?

[CarBastard]

Hello GTP'ers.

I just returned home from driving my girlfriend back to her house and on the road I found multiple incidents that triggered this doubt. You see, most of you apparently live in places like Europe, Australia or the US, places where the general tendency is to strive to be civilized, when people actually live understanding, consciously or not, that they live in a freakin' society. But that's not the case of the country I live in. The tendency here is "I go first. Screw the rest", and it's, apparently, the premise that underlines the general thought in my country. This line of thought applies to all aspects of the day-to-day life but, in this particular thread I'd like to talk about how it applies to the way people drive. On the road home I found 2 cases that I hope will explain more the kind of issues we have on the roads here:

1. I was on a wide, 5-lane higway called "Boyaca Avenue". I was in the south-north direction and had to turn left at a traffic light that allowed the turn in order to cross the avenue completely and take a 2-lane road. I took the left-most lane, triggered my indicator light and politely stood in the queue, because only one lane is marked for making the turn, the other four are for staying in the highway. Annoyingly, some people take the second lane from left to right to turn left, efectively, and quite indicently, skipping the line and blocking the traffic on the avenue. What's more annoying is that said people actually are the first ones to make the turn, instead of us idiots who rightfully make the line. I got to the point where I was first in the traffic light line and was waiting for it to go green again when an asshat taxi driver stopped next to me with his left indicator on. I said to my mom, who I was discussing the topic with, "Well, no biggie, I'll just pay attention to the traffic light and do a quick start". But to my surprise, the animal (I refuse to call such an imbecile a human) swerved and parked in front of me, over the zebra-crossing, and all of this while the traffic light was still red! When I noticed I enganged first gear and tried to close the space on him but he already had closed me and I had to brake or else my mom would've killed for crashing against a taxi. Furthermore, the jerkoff still got his head out of the window and protested.

1. Again with a taxi driver, because, believe me, where I live only the 2% of the taxi drivers are decent driving people. The others are scum, plain Hyuindai Atos driving scum. I was going up a slope that isn't too steep on a 2-lane road, keeping my right lane because I had to make a right turn in a couple of blocks. There's a bit where an extra lane appears but for buses to drop passengers and is a very short third lane. A bus in front of me turned to that extra lane to drop some passengers and another douche taxi driver did the same hoping to overtake a couple of cars in the second lane. As soon as I noticed I stepped on the pedal and left him behind the stopped bus, preventing him to achieve his goal. Here, I did succeed in showing them that I'm not made out of cardboard, that I'm a human and that I too have rights.

The rest of the way home I came arguing this situations with my mom. At the moment I'm only able to take the car out, her car out, with her company because she still doesn't trust me, even though I have had no accidents and I don't stall or anything like that. It's just that I haven't been driving for more than 6 months, I barely get to do so (which saddens me), and my mom is TREMENDOUSLY nervous (the kind of "THERE'S A CAR FIFTY METERS IN FRONT OF YOU!!! BRAKE!!!" mother) and she's rightyfully so living in this country where nobody has to pass any test just to get a drivers license (yes, really! Anyone can drive! Pay $200 and you're good to go! No medical, no written, and no driving tests at all!).

I want her to make her less nervous and I want to be a better driver, so I ask fellow GTPers, how to deal with this kind of ass drivers that think you're nonexistant? Those that skip queues, those that get in bus lanes to overtake you, and those who go 20Km/H in the left-most lane, supposedly called in the traffic code "fast lane". I'm not a driver with Fast & Furious expectations or anything, and it's got nothing to do with my manhood or pride or anything like that, the thing is that I just find it...wrong. It itches me when people try to take advantage of me, or anyone for this matter, in such stupid ways. It's just wrong. It's uncivilized. And, most of all, it's dangerous.

So, any pointers on how to deal with this scum drivers, oh wise GTPers?

 

[Grayfox]

Give way to them last thing you want is them forcing their way through smashing your car, where you could get injured as well and if they come out like a yobbo screaming your fault they may start a fight with you.

Best let them do what they want and if they crash, their fault not yours.

 

[Omnis]

Danoff gave pretty good advice in a similar thread. Treat every driver with caution as if they're a raving mad lunatic with a loaded weapon on their person.

Road rage is bad, mm'kay?

 

[wfooshee]

If they're going to use their vehicle as a weapon, let them. Getting cut off in traffic has never meant getting your gonads cut off, but so many think it does. Your manhood remains intact if you give way. Really.

Your very own statement that you showed the taxi driver that you're human and have rights is actually part of your problem.

Don't take it personally. People are scum, let them be scum. Don't join them.

 

[Driving Park]

Everyone else on the road is trying to kill you. Simple as that.

I learned to think like that when I drive and it has been very effective in dealing with drivers like that.

 

[Submerged]

Best thing to do is not to take them personally and just adjust your driving to minimise the least amount of impact to you (in terms of actually being in a collision with them).

Basically, your mother knows what can and do happen and its the lack of control over you that she doesn't have, hence why she is extremely nervous when you drive her car.

So the best thing to do is to simply drive with the aim of preserving yourself and only yourself, by estimating what everyone could do at any one time and making sure you have space to allow people to make stupid mistakes and not cause you any excessive problems.

Recently, I had a young woman that basically barged her way into my lane at quite a high speed and cut in at the last second leaving about 5cm (it felt like that!) gap between my bumper and her rear end. I had noticed her coming up for the overtake, but the issue was that she was so far back that I never actually guessed she was going for the overtake. So when she carried on overtaking other cars to get past me, I was pretty surprised at her excessive risk taking and just carried on driving at a steady and predictable speed with space to take evasive action if I so needed to. Initially I was highly annoyed internally but I didn't let anything show as nothing bad actually happened and it doesn't actually matter whether the driver is in front or behind you. You'll still get there at whatever time you get there.

Also, its better to have the impatient drivers in front of you than behind you for your own safety anyhow...

 

[photonrider]

Yet another 'road rage' thread . . . road rage will never go away. Hidden in their metal status tanks people are no more polite than hidden behind their titled UserIDs.

Over here in Canada, they teach 'Defensive Driving'; there are people from all over the world that make this place their home - and of course they bring somewhat diverse driving styles with them. I'm being polite.

Drive defensively. And above all . . . don't . . be . . impatient.

With that said . . Good Luck and drive safe!

 

[TheeFrogmanlego]

Danoff gave pretty good advice in a similar thread. Treat every driver with caution as if they're a raving mad lunatic with a loaded weapon on their person.

Road rage is bad, mm'kay?

Depends, if your in mexico that's how you drive. I like the whole motor storm vibe the roads have over there, the big rigs will KILL YOU .

 

[RTSolvalou]

I'm not sure how wide the pass was but I'm sure there'd have been a way to shut down his move, that kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable, if you needed to turn left you would already be in the left turning lane, no exceptions, no second chances, zero tolerance.

I specifically keep a hawk eye out for anyone trying to cheat and steal their way through traffic, and I force them to suffer at the hands of their own poor driving habits, trapping them in a lane they were borrowing in order to try and get ahead to cut a queue.
Of course, I'm ready to proverbially remove someone's face if they lack the required braincells to honorably accept defeat, people sometimes have difficulty seeing that they are the problem (I guess that when you're in thief countries, you'll need a gun, I will say that I'm glad I don't have to work at that level).

I undertook a quest to master the road 'flow' in response to seeing so many wrong doers out there, someone had to do something. Missed your turn off? Too bad, you'll remember for next time, and it's important that terrible drivers do so, giving them a free pass just enables them to continue being a bumbling clown at the wheel.

There are a whole spectrum of countries with their own driving attitudes/code/moods out there, and from what I hear, in France everyone lets everyone in, and I absolutely respect that, what I do is simply work to the existing attitude/code/mood of the country I live in, established by other drivers over decades.

 

[phillgt2002]

I just drive over them, but the insurance agency doesn't like that.

 

[tacom08]

I agree, went to Medellín last December and it was a complete cluster-🤬 of moped couples thinking that just because they drive a motorcycle they don't apply to transportation laws

 

[wfooshee]

Do you know what the laws are there?? I ask because in nearly every country of the world, unlike the US (except California,) motor scooters and motorcycles are treated differently by traffic laws in one major way: lane sharing. It's legal for them to filter through the lanes of slow traffic. So if that's the behavior you're refering to as "just because they drive a motorcycle," then it's you that is in the wrong, not them.