Teenagers driving dangerously and threateningly behind me...

[MsMarch]

Yesterday, I was taking DS to his sports activity. It's a bit of a drive, including on the motorway and to get to the motorway we take a couple of semi-country roads where the speed limit varies from 30mph-50mph depending on where you are on it.

Towards the beginning of this, I was going at about 40 in one of the 40 zones and a car came speeding up behind me and was very close.They must have come up very quickly as I got a bit of a fright and gently braked - no slamming, on brakes, just a gentle brake, at least partly because I'd got a bit of a fright. I wish I hadn't done that but it certainly wasn't a dangerous maunovure. But that clearly annoyed the driver and he got right up behind me to make a point. We stopped at a traffic light slightly further down and I was able to see that it was two teenage boys (young men?). They were driving a small opal or similar and between that, a slight uphill start and me driving a much more powerful car, after we went through the lights I quickly got quite far ahead of them. However... they then sped up so that they could get up behind me and were driving super super close to me again. Like if I'd braked even slightly hard they would have ploughed straight into me.

I was forced to slow slightly as of course, I was worried that if I suddenly had to stop for any reason or whatever they'd fly straight into me.- had to do it gently as they were SOO close, they would have hit me otherwise. I did think about whether I should slow a LOT so that they would be forced to overtake but I was worried that a) it's a windy road and quite narrow so overtaking is hard as there was oncoming traffic and there's certainly no way to pull over b) they were clearly very aggressive and felt like being in front I had more control vs if they got in front of me and decided to play silly buggers.

DS was clearly getting a bit scared. I was less nervous as by now I was going a bit slower and quite frankly, if they'd hit me, me and DS would probably have been fine but I can't speak for them - they would have hit me hard in their tin can. I told DS that as there wasn't really an opportunity for them to overtake, if they carried on and followed us onto the motorway we'd call the police.

As it turned out, they didn't get onto the motorway and carried on.

was I being unreasonable in how I handled it? I didn't feel unsafe, weirdly. But there wasn't anywhere to pull over properly so they could pass and I didn't want to stop as I wasn't sure what they'd do.

Trainee driving instructor here.

They probably thought the braking was a purposeful act to tell them off on your part, so were trying to teach you a lesson in a ridiculous way. Too much youth, testosterone and ego there, I’ll be trying to deal with that with some learners I’m sure!

Think I’d have found a way to let them pass, if you couldn’t on that road then maybe turn off.

A really good lesson for your son though, as I’m guessing he will be learning to drive in a few years and it’ll have shown him just how awful the experience can be from the other side.

these are pictures of the road from google maps. As you can see, not a lot of space...

Think I’d have found a way to let them pass, if you couldn’t on that road then maybe turn off.

Of course, as I've said, that would have been my preference but the more I think about it the more I find it interesting is that because the road was narrow and a bit dangerous anyway, I think I really was very nervous about the fact that they were clearly trying to intimidate me. I wonder if a man might have just stopped and let them go past, even if traffic ws delayed for a while, confident that these boys would then just carry on vs me who was worried that even if I chose to block traffic, I wasn't certain they'd leave me alone. They so clearly wanted me to be stressed and scared. And perhaps that's also partly why I wasn't - I felt like I had some control.

Oh well, I'm glad most people seem to think I handled it right in a bit of a crappy situation. And I hope those boys grow up before something bad happens to them.

That looks like a road near me. I don't think you could have done anything else. You can only pull over when it's safe to, and they are so stupid they've have probably driven into an oncoming vehicle trying to overtake you.

On my car I have front and rear dashcams so I could send footage to the police - but if you do that bear in mind they will also look at your own driving 🙂

That's bad driving from you as you weren't checking your mirrors when they shocked you and you put the brakes on. You should always be aware of other road users

I've quite often wondered what gadget I liked get to tell the person behind me to back the fuck up.

Didn't bother me when I didn't have DC. But now it drives me ballistic.

I drive one of the biggest cars on the road. And one of the most expensive (not a brag - just for background). It's a very, very rare event that either one of my children aren't in the car with me.

I was in an accident a few months back. Not my fault - the other driver was charged after dashcam footage was reviewed. A teenage boy driving 40mph through a roundabout which I was already on. Threw my 2.6ton car to the other side of the road and thankfully the car took the impact. Thank the lord neither of my children were in the car.

We replaced it with the same car for safety reasons. Ghastly teenagers often see it as their mission to drive as close to the back of my car as humanly possible. Wouldn't be a problem for their shitty little corsa but my insurance is already through the roof and I find it truly infuriating.

Sorry, I've gone a bit off topic. But I didn't realise how much shitty drivers piss me off.

I'm really not going to repeat what I may or may not have done wrong at the beginning. i don't believe I did anything wrong, but sure, maybe I could have handled it differently.

Tailgating me aggressively for 5 minutes is not, however, the answer, and they were driving dangerously to start and then again when they decided to intimidate me. They bear the fault and the responsibility here, not me.

Surely you can’t say that for certain as it would depend on how windy the road is and how fast the car behind is going.
While of course you should be using your mirrors to have as good idea as possible what is behind you, if someone zooms up at you fast enough from round a blind corner there’s no amount of mirror checking that will make you see them early.

I think you handled it just fine. Pity about the initial braking but it sounds instinctive. I also wouldn’t have let them go in front. I once had a van tailgating me then very clearly follow me down side roads in my village. I also hadn’t let him past as I was afraid he’d slam on the brakes to teach me a lesson or worse. I did what you did leaving a bigger gap in front and ended up phoning 999 to ask for advice. I was directed to go to the nearest open police station. He eventually turned around about 15 minutes later and by that time he obviously realised he wasn’t going to find out where I lived.

You didn't handle things badly. You had no idea what the idiots were going to do or were capable of.

You instinctively handled it in a way that avoided an accident when when put in an aggressive situation.

Where did I say it was ok to drive dangerously? I just outlined a possible alternative scenario. Weird indeed!