by Kimosabe » Wed Nov 26, 2014 7:28 pm
I found a rather interesting trick to use when a driver is maintaining a lane when they don't need to. It's not 100% but it often works for me.
Lights on dipped (anyway and regardless of time of day) drive upto a safe following distance to the driver whose attention you wish to attract and then drop back until your dipped beams would look like (to them) pink pricks in their mirrors before repeating. If the driver isn't looking in their mirrors (providing they are correctly adjusted... I mean the the mirrors but come to think of it...), what they will notice is a car closing in on them because the headlights will appear to be brighter, if not larger in their mirrors. If after a few attempts of trying to attract their attention like this, they don't move, they probably aren't going to move.
It depends upon how patient you are with such things but i've done this many times and sometimes it doesn't work but most of the time, when a driver is making a genuine mistake by holding position unnecessarily, they will move. When they do, please pass courteously and don't slice past them aggressively. For drivers who couldn't give a toss, no amount of hassle or light shining is going to change their tiny minds, so rather than allow that situation to create resentment, I tend to treat them as I do any self-absorbed egotist and do my utmost to ignore their nonsense by holding a safe though assertive position behind them while being ready to pass when the occasion arises. Some people just like being in front and there's nothing more to it than that. Of course there's always someone who would treat any tiny gap between cars as an invitation to fill it but apart from them, the chances are that the driver ahead will be trying to get somewhere as quickly as they can, even if that's not quickly enough for you.
A wise man once told me that "it depends". I sometimes agree.