Bad Driving ----- Lost my cool

[Custom24]

"Emotionally neutral". Excellent way of putting it, zodacbrown. I think of other road users in the same way as I would any other hazard. You wouldn't get upset with a roundabout, or traffic lights, or even an unattended animal, if it didn't do what you wanted. So why would you get upset or involved with another road user?

Even if someone is tailgaiting you / being aggressive towards you / driving incredibly stupidly, there is nothing to gain by thinking of them as an individual person, because the truth is that your relationship with that individual should not last any longer or be any more involved than the relationship you have with any other hazard on the road. You don't know them and they don't know you, and they will be gone soon enough. If you need to take action to make them gone sooner (eg get out of their way, etc) then so be it.

Once I started seeing things this way, driving became a lot more pleasant for me. It was a real breakthrough moment, although to be fair, I was pretty calm before. My problems before I saw things this way were more around letting myself be intimidated by others.

[Sru_1980]

I've got a friend who was once in the situation where someone was right on their bumper and dealt with it in a way that still makes me laugh now.

What he did was stop at some red lights, and as soon as it changed to amber (on the way back to green) he got out of the car, pulled down his trousers and said:

'This is what my arse looks like, now you've seen it close up you can keep your f***ing distance!'.



BTW it did work!


When I'm driving I tend to agree with the people suggesting pulling over for really close/aggressive tailgaters, not just because of their driving but because I don't think I drive as well with the distraction of someone that close: I can't stop looking in the rear view mirror far too much and I'm worried I might miss something important while I'm looking behind me.

That's classic!! On the distraction issue, I think that's one of the biggest dangers of tailgating - especially at night with the dazzle from headlights. It's not always possible to pull over, either. Still, one should try not to be distracted by it - trouble is, it's easier said than done sometimes!