Why do people become unhinged when you drive exactly the speed limit?

[Anonymous]

My teen driver was going exactly the speed limit to pick up his little sister from school, and was aggressively passed by cars going over a double yellow. He was outraged. I told him that etiquette requires that cars go 5 miles over the speed limit in this area, but that I understand if he feels differently, and to do the safe thing in the moment. Which is the problem. He probably doesn't have enough experience to determine what the safe thing is!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have this problem too. I generally drive somewhere between the speed limit and 5-10 mph over. I generally stay to the right. People get aggressive and tailgate me. If someone is behind me pissing me off and I have the time, I slow down even more. The tailgaters are the ones who are "annoying and unsafe."

That is really good way to get shot.

I drive slow and if some one tailgates me I pull over ASAP because I know I’m dealing with crazy.

I'm also a careful and slow driver and I used to get really upset when people would tailgate me, because it is the height of rudeness when you are essentially protecting other people on the road by being safe, but instead of getting angry now I just pull over. Sometimes I will pull right back in behind them to show that I didn't like being tailgated.

But I would never slow down to aggravate someone. If I'm ever tempted to do that, I think about the crazy Idaho or Iowa killer (who killed the four teens) who was pulled over multiple times for tailgating people. It's often really unhinged people who tailgate and I don't want to tangle with them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have this problem too. I generally drive somewhere between the speed limit and 5-10 mph over. I generally stay to the right. People get aggressive and tailgate me. If someone is behind me pissing me off and I have the time, I slow down even more. The tailgaters are the ones who are "annoying and unsafe."

That is really good way to get shot.

I drive slow and if some one tailgates me I pull over ASAP because I know I’m dealing with crazy.

I'm also a careful and slow driver and I used to get really upset when people would tailgate me, because it is the height of rudeness when you are essentially protecting other people on the road by being safe, but instead of getting angry now I just pull over. Sometimes I will pull right back in behind them to show that I didn't like being tailgated.

But I would never slow down to aggravate someone. If I'm ever tempted to do that, I think about the crazy Idaho or Iowa killer (who killed the four teens) who was pulled over multiple times for tailgating people. It's often really unhinged people who tailgate and I don't want to tangle with them

Except you’re doing the exact opposite with your policing behavior. No one asked you to protect anyone else Karen

[Anonymous]

Because our culture does not a knowledge that speeding kills people. They are impatient and selfish. So they act like you following the law are a dangerous, unsafe person. It is messed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care as long as you stay to the right and get out of my way. Most people feel the same, AFAIK.

I'm nearly always in the right lane, unless passing a super slow driver, then I'm right back in the right lane. And I'm never on my phone or distracted. Two hands at 10 and 2 and always doing the exact speed limit. Don't understand why it enrages so many drivers.

10 and 2 is not the right positioning any more since the advent of airbags. Check the learner’s manual from this decade.

[Anonymous]

Because the traffic nervous Nellies invariably drive 5-10 mph below the speed limit. Because, you know, just in case.

[Anonymous]

Most drivers go +5 mph over the speed limit.

[Anonymous]

I routine drive 10-15 miles over the speed limit and you a33holes still tailgate and act impatient. So what’s your answer to that? 25-35 mph over the speed limit is still perfectly safe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most drivers go +5 mph over the speed limit.

+1 It's convention.

[Anonymous]

I always tell my kids to keep an eye on the unhinged drivers who illegally pass drivers who are obeying the law. I don't say anything else, but they always figure out the lesson. Miles and miles down the road, the car is either just in front of us at a light, or we've passed them legally a few times too. By the time we get where we are going, they are no farther ahead of us, so they risked people's lives with their dangerous passing for no advantage whatsoever!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speed limits are suggestions.

And stop signs are optional, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If one person is tailgating you, they are a jerk. If 5 people are tailgating you, you are the jerk. It’s not that hard to understand.

Only one car can tailgate you. And the tailgating driver is an unsafe driver.

[Anonymous]

I don't honk at people going exactly the speed limit but I do think they are either anxious, sanctimonious, or fixated so much on their speedometer that they're failing to pay adequate attention to other things, and therefore not any safer than me and the rest of traffic going 5-10 over. I amuse myself by imagining that they might be trying to avoid police attention because they have no license or insurance, or have open warrants, or something. It also means they may be incapable of "reading the room" (I mean, the police here drive 10-15 over routinely), which isn't a good quality in a driver needing situational awareness, or aren't local and are thus unpredictable. So it makes sense to get away from them.

I did have a funny one recently in this vein, though, with a driver behind me who started honking furiously for me to go when a light turned green. I was stopped because there was an MCPS bus that had just pulled up with its lights flashing unloading kids on the other side of the street, and the median was only a painted stripe so everyone had to stop in both directions. I actually thought I was possibly sitting just past the point where the bus camera would have caught me (it pulled up and stopped while we were all at a red light) and could maybe have gone, but it was too expensive of a gamble to take. This guy one car length behind me would absolutely have been nailed. He didn't even realize that if I had moved he would definitely have gotten a $250 automated ticket. You're welcome, dipstick!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speed limits are suggestions.

And stop signs are optional, right?

Sure are.

[Anonymous]

OP, they do it because they lack emotional maturity and have poor impulse control.