Yep - I tell ya', people around here are WEIRD.  Had similar thing happen when
I was in the right lane of I-95, and some bozo chick races up beside me on an
entrance ramp, matches my speed, and just sits there.  She's either gonna have
to continue straight and take the cloverleaf exit ahead of her, or get ahead of
me or fall back behind me.  She finally gives me the horn and falls back.  Not
sure what that was about.  Was she expecting me to move over for her, when I
had acres of room behind me?  She'd have a long wait, that's for sure.

And, back to the law stuff, some poor schmuck driving a fire truck skidded on
the ice in Fredericksburg last month and hit some other car, and all the
illustrious hind-sighters declared that it was too dangerous for him to have
been going that fast, 45 I think it was, and that he should have been doing 15
- 30 mph.  On a fire run.  Right.  There's a fire that is about 2 minutes from
gobbling up your kids in a 2nd story bedroom, and you want the fire truck to
take 4 minutes to drive each mile to get to your house fire?  Hopefully, it'll
happen to the self-righteous hind-sighters next time, and we'll see what they
say then.

And it's funny, that we can't all, as the general public, share in the risk
that would come with a fire truck doing 45 mph on the ice, but the damn cops
can chase some Joe Schmuck at 140 mph just to be able to tag him for speeding.
Yeah, that's _real_ important, and worth risking the perp T-boning a van-load
of Brownie scouts just to catch a damn speeder...

Screwed up priorities, thru-and-thru - that's Virginia.  I'm going back to
Indiana.  5 more years, and Sayonara, baby.

Dave Head

I've had them do that and/or try to force me off the road. Their idiotcy
and lack of planing not to mention lack of decency is somehow in their
twisted world, my fault.

Those are "stealth signs", somewhat like the "stealth buses" that
Scott talks about on occasion. My area is full of both, and I *LOVE*
to use those stealth signs (since I usually notice 'em several blocks
away) to screw over the LLBers and other equally incompetent drivers.
I match their speeds, forcing them to come to a complete stop while
waiting for the traffic behind me to clear the merge point.

Come on down to South Carolina; that's the modus operandi of most
drivers. It's my opinion that they believe you're *supposed* to let
them in front of you at the last minute, even though they had ample
opportunity to merge properly had they been observant enough to notice
the signs, even the ones with the bright flashing arrows. It does my
heart good to realize there's a good chance those idiots will die
behind the wheel.

Around here, the only "unsafe" driving practices you'll get ticketed
for are speeding. You're welcome (indeed, encouraged) to drive the
wrong way on one-way streets, not issue turn signals, or completely
fail to yield right of way, without fear of ramification. No wonder my
state leads the nation in the number of fatal accidents / number of
drivers ratio. But that's a good thing, because dealing with these
idiots for the last 25 years has seriously honed my defensive driving
skills.

--

Ask me about drunk driving for fun and profit!

Definitely less common - generally, other places I've lived, they actually seem
to want the person that they put in jail to have actually done something wrong
first, which it does not appear that this guy did.  There's no _proof_ that he
was racing her, only that she was trying to beat him.  There's no _proof_ that
he knew that she was about to do what she did, and that his _failing_ to slow
down would result in an accident - nobody expects that a car in the other lane
is going to be so insane as to change lanes without the required room, so he
had no reason to believe that there was anything dangerous about to happen.

IOW, I would probably acted the same way he did, if he indeed was not racing
her as he says he was not.

Well, _he_ didn't contact _her_, _she_ contacted _him_.  She steered her car
into his lane in spite of him being beside her.

No he's not.

Its a crock, fer sure.

Dave Head

It wouldn't do any good to tell you it was a left turn 'cuz you're so around
the bend anyway that you'd simply want to put _any_ survivors in jail, no
matter what, just like the rest of the state of Virginia...

DPH

Ladies and Gentlemen (and I use those words loosely), Speeders & Drunk
Drivers are MURDERERS said in rec.autos.driving:

It means the lane that is not on the outside of the road. Learn English
or Gin Tequila Firewater out of here.

Why? He communicated it to me just fine.

Lost you? Like that's difficult to do? ROTFLMAO.

Perhaps if you used a real dictionary, that perfectly obvious
statement would make sense to you. No wonder you can't understand it.

--

Ask me about drunk driving for fun and profit!

She DIDN'T HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY.  If you yield ROW to every a-hole on
the road that tries to cut you off, you end up driving pretty damn slow.
 As in not moving.

Um...  if you are in a through lane, YOU have the right of way, and if
there is not enough space in front of you for another car to safely
merge, well, TFB for the merger.  Unless the "crazy chick" had already
positioned herself in front of him before the merge point (which the
article clearly states is not the case,) I find it hard to sympathize
with her.

Huh?  It's perfectly possible for you to be following another driver at
a distance which is safe for you to stop but not safe to allow another
driver in.

Who says he was "protecting?"  Maybe he was just driving along expecting
the other driver to fall in behind, as the law requires.  Most people
*do* give in to people who drive like bullies, while not expecting
someone to cut you off may be poor driving practice, a little
inattention is not outside the realm of possibility.

Yeah, it's a f.cking conspiracy for blame not being given where blame is
deserved.  The woman was at fault, and solely at fault.  If not for her
illegal, unsafe, negligent driving, this incident would not have
happened.  I have had it up about as high as it can get with people just
like her that I interact with on a daily basis that think that their
little selves are so much more important than everyone else that it
gives them the right to BREAK THE GODDAMNED LAW and push their way in
front of everyone.

In your world, apparently, there's no right and wrong, only dumb and dumber.

nate

Common sense (yes, I realize this is an attribute you don't possess)
would dictate that if you were rushing your baby to the hospital, you
would do two things differently:

1: Drive with your hazard indicators active.

2: Don't "pace" a vehicle beside you.

Sorry the trivial is beyond your grasp, moron.

Ah, well, dude gets out in a month.

Retarded bitch never gets out. At least the punishment fit her crime.
She had the added benefit of taking out three other branches in her
defective family tree; even better!

BFS, moron. I see plenty of activity like this in my stretch of the
woods. People have AMPLE opportunity to merge properly, but say FYMF,
wait until the merge point, then try to force their way in. I don't
give in to 'em; they had plenty of opportunities to observe the merge
points from a reasonable distance away, and wait until the last minute
to adjust. Intelligence would dictate merging ASAP to avoid getting
"hung out to dry", or run off the road. Fortunately stupid drivers
tend to die fairly frequently, say, at a rate of over 3,000 a month in
the USA. In this case, she managed to prove that survival of the
fittest is alive and well.

Spurious conclusion. Where you there to witness the event?

Why not? He only had to shell out some time and a small amount of
change, and he did the country's population a favor.

I disagree; I believe the survivor did the state's residents a favor.

--

Ask me about drunk driving for fun and profit!

That sort of thinking just leads to people deliberately driving like a
nutcase to get others to yield.

The phrase "contributory negligence" doesn't mean what you seem to
think it means..

Sure.  If I'm stupid.  If I'm not, I'm going to reduce my following
distance to the point where other cars aren't constantly moving in
front of me.  If someone wants to move in with their rear bumper a few
feet from my front, I'll assume that's all the following distance they
need.