To want to let people who drive up your arse hit you?

[Fattynotfitty]

Driving home from work, two occasions had cars driving so closely behind me that if I were to stop suddenly they would hit me no doubt about it. I drive to the speed limit occasionally slightly over and it was raining too!
Sometimes I really want to just slam on my brakes and let them hit me to show them how dangerous it is! ( Of course I wouldn't but am I being unreasonable to want to do it in theory!?) I find it so intimidating and off putting when I'm driving.

I think it’s a bad idea to play games with them. I just ignore them and pull over when it’s safe to do so. I’ve also had a car drive up my bum and let him past only to see him pulled over by an unmarked police car further up the road. There are so many speed cameras everywhere. They are going to get caught.

I live in Cyprus where driving up your arse is a national sport - most days I have someone so close to me that I can’t see their numberplate. I’ve taken to ignoring them completely, there’s rarely anywhere safe to pull over.

The other favourite trick here is to go very fast on the motorway in the fast lane just flashing your lights constantly even if there’s no one immediately in your way - just to let those further up the road know you are coming through in your very important white BMW. Again, I have taken to ignoring them completely because it annoys them further - we usually only have two lanes to the motorway so sometimes I have to sit in the inside lane if there is a long line of traffic to pass.

I drive old bangers. I already had one car sandwiched by an idiot on a mobile phone who failed to see everyone braking, including me. What I normally do in tailgating situations is ease off the accelerator, which confuses the cavemen.

Luxury car like BMW etc have better handling and power so is easy to drive faster. This is why see more speeding I think

Yes, it is often those types of cars. The drivers have forgotten how heavy and clunky an old crap car is. I cannot actually manoeuvre my car around the twists and turns and hills as fast as their BMW can, but it doesn't stop the tailgating or flashing or dangerous overtaking. The idiot in the fast car is the problem.

The way I handle this is to gently ease off the accelerator. Nine times out of ten they'll drop back. If I'm in a 30mph zone doing thirty I'll happily go down to 20mph. I won't be bullied, new car also has a tow bar

I think that’s terrible advice from the police driving instructor. We are taught the opposite. Give a couple of gentle pumps on the brake. Otherwise you’re asking to be rear ended. I’d also say where I’m from 99% of people drive faster than the speed limit.

Arghhh.. drivers who do this need a virtual kick up their backside. This happens often where I live. The speed limit is 20 on a long stretch of road near my house and theres always some idiot driver who will get up right behind me. I refuse to speed up or feel intimidated which is what they are trying to achieve. Knobs.

This drives me mad too, most of the roads around where we live are 20mph and I feel like the only one who abides by it - always someone up my bumper who then overtakes, speeds away and I meet them at the next set of lights 🙄.

If I can I always just pull over and let them pass, can’t stand feeling intimidated!

@BeigeFoodLover I’ve had this happen! Boy racer got stopped a mile or so from where he over took me in a 40 zone. Got pulled over and as I passed i gave a hoot and a thumbs up😁

It's dangerous to slow down without using your brakes (with lights to alert the tailgater) and also to slam on your brakes.

A military policewoman i knew told me that if you lightly tap your brake with your left foot it makes the brake lights come on, without you actually braking. You can also, if possible, use your right foot to accelerate away. I've only done that in a big merc though, my wee hatchback probably couldn't handle it.

I once had a tailgater pulled over by police behind me, during a campaign against tailgaters, which was satisfying. I tend to either pull over if i can or put the 4-way flashers on to buck up their ideas.

As to not driving to the road conditions - if you are driving at 30 in a 60 zone with no reason (ie. the conditions are good and your car is ok) that is sometimes as dangerous (mostly because of the reactions of other drivers you are holding up unnecessarily) as speeding.

But tailgating is twat behaviour.

I was tempted once when the bint following me for 20 minutes was hard up my arse alternating between doing her make up and using her phone.

Bint? really? get to fuck with the misogynist language.

I had someone do this to me recently.

If you’re the lady smoking a fag whilst driving a cream Fiat 500 on the a52 through the road works recently, you’re dangerous. Not only were you driving unbelievably close to my car (and I was doing the speed limit through the roadworks, there are cameras), I saw you pull in and drive up someone else’s arse too. Get some spatial awareness before you drive in to the back of someone.

I also hate it when someone drives up really close then as soon as they overtake they zoom off in front of you and turn off at a junction. What’s the fucking point? Dickheads.

Someone doing their make up at the wheel is a bit and alot worse

The worst test I encountered was on the road the circles Glasgow airport. It is a massive curve and it was raining really heavily, I could feel my car aquaplaning a bit and the limit is 50 I had slowed down to about 45 due to the conditions. Fuckhead behind me was way to close the decided he’d overtake, he pulled out then realised there was oncoming traffic and pulled back in narrowly missing me. I was so relieved at the next set of traffic lights when he fucked off!

Oh or the one when I had pulled into the right lane to overtake who didn’t like that I was overtaking st the speed limit and sat on my arse flashing his lights and honking the horn. Made me more determined to stay at the limit as that was faster than the left lane. The problem was I had my elderly grandmother in the car and she was really confused and scared so I did have to pull over to the left. If it had just been me he would have had another few miles before I let him go. He was a fat little man in a big gold car. Even if he was frustrated there was no need to act like that!

It's dangerous to slow down without using your brakes (with lights to alert the tailgater)

Nonsense, it's good driving. There is no need to brake constantly, it's super-annoying and can cause a chain of braking all the way back through a line of traffic. It's worrying that people actually think engine braking is a bad thing. You ease off the gas, and only brake if you have to.

Providing it won’t alarm the driver in front of you, flash your lights. This will also flash your tail lights and the driver of the car up your bum is likely to think they are break lights

What??

@Bargebill19

And maybe they are driving at 30 in a 60 zone because they can’t see as your headlights are filling their car with light plus the road in front of them, essentially making them night blind.... so please leave a 2 second gap between yourself and the car in front.

Or maybe they are driving slowly because they’ve seen something ahead that in your impatience you haven’t - horses on the road or a pedestrian or a huge pothole they need to navigate carefully.

MNers always say this. Unless I am driving a really small car and they are driving a huge bus, the chances are I can see what they can see. Occasionally if there's a line of traffic you can't eg see a cyclist but if it's only one car, and you don't tailgate, you have a view of the road in front of the car in front of you.

(agree there could be a pothole, but that's one thing, not something that requires them to drive at 40 in a 60 limit for miles and miles)

Most of the roads by me are 20mph and are covered in speed humps because theres lots a schools children playing and of course cars parked here there and every where.
Its every time I go out I get some idiot racing up behind me getting right up my arse.
Most of the time you cant go 20 down these roads because theres so much swerving around humps, pot holes, cars that's without looking out for pedestrians etc. I scares me that my children cross these roads with these idiots driving.
To a pp who had a lorry right up behind them. I hate this at traffic light etc, they just feel too close.

Please be cautious. A couple of years ago I had such a driver behind me, driving aggressively with no real gap and getting frustrated that a long line of traffic was not moving faster. The car in front braked and so did I. The driver behind went into the back of me. I got out and so did this guy in his 20s. He was wildly angry and assaulted me with a tight slap across the face with some expletives. Other drivers were quickly out their cars to assist and he drove off again at speed. The police traced him and he was charged and convicted of assault. There was genuinely nothing I could have done to prevent the incident, but experience here should show we need to be careful.

When there is no opportunity for them to overtake slow right up, they'll soon get the message

There is a 30mph stretch of road that lots of (male) drivers seem to think should be 50mph plus early in the morning. The amount of times I’ve been tailgated, beeped and aggressively overtaken for doing the speed limit is astonishing. My husband didn’t believe me until he started did the route at 6am once and found 3 cars did it to him.

We live on a busy A road, most of which is 30mph but used to be 40 twenty years ago. The stretch we live off is still 40 for about half a mile and our drive is a sharp turn off the road. I get tailgated nearly every day. The worst incident was a pillock who tried to undertake me as I turned left into our drive in the 40 section and it was only me hitting the horn that stopped him. Yes, I had indicated in plenty of time and slowed.

@notonmytime

Is it allowed to need to spray clean the windscreen when someone is too close behind?

When it gets to the point i can't read a tailgater's licence plate because they're so close, this is what I do. It has a fairly good rate of success at getting them to back off a bit.

@cologne4711

It's dangerous to slow down without using your brakes (with lights to alert the tailgater)

Nonsense, it's good driving. There is no need to brake constantly, it's super-annoying and can cause a chain of braking all the way back through a line of traffic. It's worrying that people actually think engine braking is a bad thing. You ease off the gas, and only brake if you have to.

Driving lessons in 2005 - 'Don't use the engine to brake. The cars behind need to see you're slowing down. If you do it in your test, you will fail'. I'd grown up riding motorbikes, where it's almost always better to slow with the engine, as it gives you the power to accelerate away easily.