Here is the ideal spot to share your road (horror) stories! It's much safer to vent on here than on the road! I will start with one of my own, and this is the incident that inspired me to get off my tush and start a group: My husband was driving us home from a nice dinner, early one evening. The baby was asleep in her car seat, and I was listening to the Ipod. We were turning right onto a road not too far from our community. We were going to need to get over so we could make a left up at the next light. I can recall my husband accelerating slightly, signaling, looking over into his blind spot, and then proceeding to change lanes when he suddenly jerked the car back into the lane we were originally in. I began to inquire what that was about, when a yellow Corvette came along side of us and stayed next to our car. My husband slowed down some more so he could try to get over again after the Corvette passed, but the driver was toying with us at that point and tried to keep us from changing lanes. We slowed down, so did he. We sped up, so did he. We were about to miss our turn, so we slowed to an almost complete stop (there were other cars now that caught up to us during this drama), when the Corvette finally went over to the left into the turning lane we needed to be in. We went across and ended up behind him. Of course, he had a macho declaration on his vanity plate. While the light was red, the driver got out of his car and ordered my husband to roll down his window, which was already down the whole time. I told my husband to hand me the phone in case we had to call the police. I was in fear for the safety of my baby! He yelled at my husband, insulted him about his driving and our choice of car (a Subaru Legacy), bragged about his car, to which my husband got out of the car as well (he is about a foot taller and 100 lbs heavier than this man), and checked off that first of all, we had a baby in the car, and second, the Corvette driver was going so fast down the road that he was on us as soon as we were in the middle of lane changing, and my husband went right back into his original lane with no argument. This man muttered a few more insults and then got back into his car as the light changed. We hung back pretty far at that point before turning into our subdivision. What in the world may have crawled up his pancreas to get him into such a tiff, we'll never know. As a general pet peeve, everyone makes mistakes, me included, but I really get infuriated (and profoundly disappointed) at those people who feel they have to get even or demonstrative with the people who have made the mistake by doing something hazardous in retaliation. On purpose! Cutting someone down, hitting the brakes, swerving on the road…There is a big difference between accidentally burning the house down and arson, the latter being criminal. It is not necessary to endanger everyone on the road just to prove a point. There of course were many, many instances that I can recall concerning some very irrational road behavior, but this one really was the last straw before I committed to starting this group.

I understand not everyone has a clue about their environment on the road.  I was stuck in traffic on a two-lane road, and when I got near an entrance ramp onto a highway on the right, I moved all the way over to the left so that anyone behind me wanting to get on the ramp could do so without waiting for the traffic to move.  Of course, this considerate gesture was completely lost on the guy in the car behind me, who immediately wedged his car over the the right to have a better view of the line of traffic ahead, completely blocking any way someone else could pass on the right to get onto the ramp to go onto 417 from Narcoossee Rd.  until traffic started moving again.

Someone actually got upset at my road generosity once, because I didn't close off the space at an entrance and let some cars sneak in during some bad traffic, as if the extra 10-second delay made it impossible for him to get to the CVS pharmacy 2 blocks up in a timely fashion, which was where he ended up.  Maybe he had to pee, for as I completed my brazen generosity, he tried to go around me, which was dangerous because I didn't notice what he was trying to do until I moved up and he couldn't get back in from the break in the median he drove into, so while he was stuck next to me his adolescent girlfriend rolled down her window and started to cuss me out about what I did.  I said, "Wow, it's such a horrible thing to be nice, huh?"

People are so rude when it comes to driving. I TRY to be nice and not block driveways, so that other people can get out. So many times, i've left the opening, just in case there happens to be someone that may need to get out of that spot.... and i get honked at, or people drive around me just to get into that spot. Give me a break. I used to be road rageous - well not as much as my husband... but now that i have kids, i try to be a lot calmer. Now if only i could get Brandon to be the same!