Driving philosophy: "Let them win"

[Unimaster]

I shall change my ways.

I also like to gun it at assholes and make them swerve or slam on their brakes when I'm waiting to turn left and the last oncoming car speeds up to beat the yellow light that is about to turn red. It's even sweeter when I see them get the flash of the traffic camera.

You're the asshole here, too.

Beating a yellow: totally legal
Turning left on red while you're already in the box: totally legal
What you're doing: being a dick.

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I also like to gun it at assholes and make them swerve or slam on their brakes when I'm waiting to turn left and the last oncoming car speeds up to beat the yellow light that is about to turn red. It's even sweeter when I see them get the flash of the traffic camera.

You're the asshole here, too.

Beating a yellow: totally legal
Turning left on red while you're already in the box: totally legal
What you're doing: being a dick.

When the light turns yellow, of course a couple of cars in the oncoming lane have the time and the right to breeze through it before I can proceed. But there's always that one last guy who has to speed up and beat it as it turns red when it's obvious to him and everyone else that there is enough time and distance for him to stop. I like giving such people a little scare. Does being a dick to a dick make me a dick? Maybe so, ha.

[Mick Shrimpton]

"Let them win" might be good for your mental health, but it's a coward's philosophy. What if John McCLane allowed Hans Gruber to execute all those hostages and steal $640 million in bearer bonds? Should he have "let them win" because intervening would inconvenience his Christmas?

What are those sex noises coming from the showers at Penn State? Who cares--it might upset my state of mind.

Where are those boxcars full of jews going? It's unpleasant to consider, so I'll just mind my own beeswax.

Miscreants deserve swift justice. If you disobey the rules of the road, I will savor boxing you in, slowing you down and aggravating you.

Yippee kai yay, mother f-er.

[cwiko]

"Let them win" might be good for your mental health, but it's a coward's philosophy...

Wait, did you just equate bad driving to child rape and the Holocaust in one fell internet message board post?

Bravo, sir.

[BadComrade]

...the left lane merging on-ramp design downtown is the best example of poor city planning. I wonder if they track how many fatalities it's caused. They should be teaching about it in some sort of public planning school.

I've been using those to leave the Lake / Halsted area for 22 years. At the top of the ramp, I floor it. By the time I reach the end of the ramp, I'm going faster than anyone would possibly be going in the left lane that I'm merging into. I've never, ever come close to merging in front of someone going faster than me. That's how you stay accident-free on those ramps. Things like that are the reason why I drive a car with insane acceleration and excellent brakes / handling. Yeah, sure, your 1980 Monte Carlo might be "sweet", but I bet there's like, 6" of play in the steering wheel before the thing actually fucking turns and it probably takes you 100 feet more to come to a complete stop from 80 than it does for me to. I guarantee you that every accident caused at one of those ramps is by the people that come to a complete stop at the end, sit there waiting for what they think is an opening, merge out and then get rear-ended by someone doing 75 in the left lane they're merging in to, or by someone merging in to the left lane behind a dude doing 0-60 in 12 seconds after deciding it's safe to merge onto the highway. People who do not know how to fucking match the speed of the cars on the road they're trying to get on should be ticketed. So fucking annoying and often the cause of traffic jams.

People sometimes ask me, "Why do you have a fast car when you live in Chicago?". It's because cars that are built to go fast are also built to maneuver and stop amazingly well. From now on, I'll just tell them to ask noise&light about the accident I avoided in Austin (which was due to the Brembo brakes on my car).

[tbone]

Oh man, I try very hard to live by the "let them win" philosophy in traffic, but I definitely struggle with slow mergers. Slow mergers are the fucking worst. Also, people that pull out in front of you and then get an "Oh shit!" look on their face and stop. FUCKING GO! YOU ALREADY GOT IN MY WAY!

Sorry, sorry. Serenity now...