To be have lost faith in the human race after my near brush with death this afternoon..........

[topsyturveymum]

Driving back home from soft play with my nearly 4yo dd strapped safely in the back and my dear sis in law in the front. Was negotiating a horrible roundabout, being careful to get in right lane etc.....took the wrong exit and ended up on a dual carrigeway having to drive 2 miles before I could turn round !

In a bit of a flap becuase of this, went round roundabout on outside lane, so went onto dcway on the outside lane & was picking up speed to move over to inside.....looked in rear view mirror to see a complete arsehole right up my tail end - you know the type, boy racer who thinks he owns the road. Drove a bit further, accelerated a bit - so did he, so still right up my arse. Instinctively, to protect dd (as she cops it first if anyone goes into the back of me) went to pull into inside lane to let lunatic boy racer past, didn't see car coming up in my blind spot and nearly had a crash -just managed to swerve back into outside lane in time to avoid nasty accident.

Shaking like a leaf, dd crying, sis in law turned a funny shade of green - managed to pull over into inside lane when clear - only to see boy racer overtake me, look me straight in the eyes and LAUGH AT ME!!! What a lowlife - he nearly caused me to crash and kill us all and he has the audacity to laugh. What a f'ing b***d!!!!!!!!

I know I should have been more careful and sure it was safe to pull over, but I was in sheer panic that at any minute this t**t was going to shunt me from behind, he was that close. It makes me so mad when people do that, especially when it's obvious there's a child in the back (the seat can be seen above the window). Why are bloke drivers such knobheads?

Phew, just needed to vent.x.

I had real trouble with this sort of stuff when I was pg and got terrible perinatal anxiety.

He was a thoughtless stupid cock. Total wanker. Young tossbag with no sense of his own mortality. You are right to be very upset and angry and pissed off. But he did not actually want to hurt you. If he has actually caused harm or injury to you or your children he would not have been pleased.

Repeat as necessary.

need to remember to check that blind spot!

would have been equally as scary for the people in the car you nearly crashed into. Other boy racer is an inconsiderate twat though...

Well done pagwatch! Hopefully, he never did it again. It's happened to me loads of times, but never as awful as today, and it is my pet hate as it is so arrogant and unnecessary.

It really makes my blood boil when these people can see I have a vulnerable child in the back who wouldn't fair too well if bashed from behind at 50 miles an hour . I used to sneer at those 'Child on Board' notices before I had dd - now I think I'll put mine back in the window to see if that makes these idiots back off a bit. However, today's shit for brains candidate probably couldn't even read, so would have proved ineffective!

Times like today I wish I was a policewoman! God how sweet it would be to put a blue siren on the roof a la Starsky and Hutch!!!

Lovely tin is right - it's just bravado.
The reason I don't drive is because I would react very aggressively and riskily to this behaviour - seriously.
I've got very poor impulse control and anger management - quite frankly, MN is the one place where I can allow myself time to step back and release my inner gracious diplomat.....put me in charge of a ton of metal at speed, however.
However, I do agree that this little shit would have been mortified if anything had've happened....you just gotta think, he'll have kids one day and be really irritated at his previous behaviour.

Absolutely summer - lesson learned. In the heat of the moment, I lapsed concentration as my boiling blood caused my error of judgement. Feel sick to the stomach at what could have been and would have felt totally responsible . Hope the poor people in the other car are OK too

When ds was about 9mths old i took him to the skip with me,i was just about to pull away from the skips when a wanker bloke in a wankmobile bmw reversed straight into me.

I could see him doing it so i beebed my horn as i had nowhere to go but he didnt even look in his mirrors,he just reversed!

He jumped out & started calling me a silly cow for driving into him,but he had obviously never met a mother who was in a rage cos he had made her baby cry!!

I said to him that he had never even looked in his mirror & he said he didnt need to as he had sensor parking!I could not believe that he relied on that,the tosser.

Luckily it was all on CCTV & when he disputed it i rung my insurance to get hold of said CCTV footage & the woman was laughing her head off cos she said he looked all bravado when he first got out of his car but when he saw me charging over to him with ds in my hands he went very meek!

Oh & dropping off & picking up time for the schools round here is awful for the mums tailgating trying to rush from the infants to the junior school.

Topsy - yesterday aside - you dont sound like a very confident driver - have you been passeed your test long? If I were you I would maybe think about some more lessons - pass plus or confidence on motorways?

had this load, especially on drive to IL (when we were talking to them) and some really dangerous driving.
One resulted in a van ended up in my boot and us trapped between 2 cars when dd1 was 3years old. Tosser wrote off my car, and in the car in front was a pregnant mum, 2 kiddies and a grandma
Tosser hit us at about 50mph and i was off work for 4 months. He however had little damage and also no lisence,tax,MOT or insurance

I Always slow down now with tailgatters, bugger me if im going to let someone hurt my children.
I also learnt from MNetter that if you spray your window wash, they soon get tired of wet windows, they back off

my dad always gave me a great bit of advice when someone tailgates. Switch your fog lights on and off. They then think your breaking, they break and back off. I do this all the time and it works a treat.

"has anyone ever been tailgated by a woman"
well not that I've noticed...but I've done it
DH once pointed out I was driving a bit too close to the car in front - no idea why, I wasn't trying to get past or be aggressive, for some reason my speed/distance judgement was crap that day!

DH was tailgated by a chappie not so long ago. He was right up behind dh, on his mobile, gesticulating rudely at dh to let him past. DH did, watched him speed up to break the limit while talking on his phone and swearing. DH then switched on the blue light in the grill of his unmarked car, pulled him over and issued a fine and points on his licence. Just sometimes they choose the wrong person to tailgate.

DH always says to concentrate on you own driving and be as safe as possible. Don't start slowing down or putting on your fog lights to confuse, just drive your own route in the safest way you can. If you have a passenger who can take the car details, do it and ring the police non-emergency number. If you're on a dc then chances are there will be some traffic cops somewhere who may be able to keep an eye out for that car.

What a knob I'm sorry you went through that.

Fwiw I was being chased in a mild sort of way by some eejit up my backside, going up a hill the other day - was so anxious by the top that I went straight across a mini roundabout almost right in front of another car coming from the right - I just couldn't stop as they'd prob have gone into me from behind.

Some people are just bastards.

When I was much younger, and not long passed my driving test I was driving home in the dark along a long straight bit of road. This car came up behind me and was so close I couldn't see its headlights in my rear view! I doggedly kept to exactly 60mph, until the car overtook and I saw it was a police car!

I firmly believe he was trying to get me to go over the speed limit so he could book me - there was loads of oppurtunity for him to overtake, no need to tailgate at all.

What geordieminx said.

You really don't sound very confident - the outside lane of a dual carrigeway isn't really the best place to be trying to gather speed when you join. Is there someone who could take you out for practice, without children in the car?

YA definitely NBU. The other driver sounds like an arse. When I passed my test my dad told me that when driving, always assume that every other driver on the road is a complete idiot - it makes you think much more about what you are doing.

Freckle & Geordie. I consider myself a confident and safe driver - I passed my test donkies years ago and so have had lots of practice at it! If I didn't believe I could drive competently, I wouldn't get in the car with my dd.

I took the wrong exit at a very confusing large roundabout that I don't use very often which resulted in me pulling into the outside lane....the rest is history! I must confess, I don't do much motorway driving as always leave it to dh as he loves driving a bit more than me, so I'm happy to be a passenger.

What happened yesterday, imo, has more to do with my emotions taking over than necessarily bad driving - I was concentrating too much on what was going on behind me, getting more and more worked up about it and this casued an error of judgement in that I tried to move over out of this idiot's way without properly checking to see if it was safe to do so - imp, that's where my fault lies..........but thanks for the advice, anyway . x.

I had a really horiible experience the other day on my way home.

I was driving behind a motorbike and they were goling fairly slowley on an open road so i went to overtake, it was a safe manouver that would usually pose no problem, but as i was just past him started beeping and shouting, i just carried on not knowing what his problem was.

He faollowed me about a centermeter away from by back bumper, all the time screaming and shouting and beeping.
I drove around trying to loose him, i was terified, i eventually stopped, making sure there were people around.

He got off his bike, came to my closed window and started screaming and spitting in my face, calling me a slag and a c*nt, apparently he wanted to turn into a side road when i passed him (he didn't indicate so i had no idea)

Anyway i told him i was calling the police so he went away, i was shaking in tears and really frightened. I managed to get home, i should of got his number plate and reported the twat but i was to scared to at the time.

he was abig bloke and there was another man on the bike with him.

geordieminx, I don't think the OP sounds like a bad driver. Sometimes when you have children in the car and someone else is pressing your buttons to make you panic, you do tend to make a mistake. I myself have got flustered and confused having taken the wrong exit at a roundabout and that was without someone tailgating me.

oops, sorry topsyturveymum, i see you've answered geordieminx and frecklefface.

Okay, I asked my driving instructor what to do when being tailgated. He said the best thing you can do is slowly reduce your speed. Don't break suddenly or anything, just take your foot off the accelerator a bit. Then, should they have the opportunity, they can overtake you at a safe speed, and also in the event of an accident both of the cars will be going slower and cause less damage.

In the end they are in the wrong, so don't feel bad if they abuse you. Just think about the wonderful view from your high horse

Incidentally I rolled into the front of the car behind me on a lesson last week. I stalled on a hill and he was too close. His own damned fault for stopping right up the arse of a learner driver IMO.

Oh Titsalina - poor you . That sounds absolutely horrible. It beggars belief that blokes can think it's OK to intimidate women in this way - it's nothing short of bullying and harrassment. Shame they can't take a minute out to think how it would feel to be on the receiving end of such appalling behaviour. Don't these people have wives/girfriends/mothers/sisters - I'm sure they'd go ballistic if any of their female loved ones were put through such an awful experience. Hope you've got over it - sending you a . x.

it sounds like a mix of the op's bad driving and the guy behind being a bit of a cunt with the laughing at her near accident.
but he didn't seem to be driving badly. i'd imagine tailgating someone who has moved to the outside lane of a motorway to pick up speed is almost impossible to avoid.

howveer that doesn't excuse anyone laughing at someone nearly being involved in a serious accident.

it sounds like a mix of the op's bad driving and the guy behind being a bit of a cunt with the laughing at her near accident.
but he didn't seem to be driving badly. i'd imagine tailgating someone who has moved to the outside lane of a motorway to pick up speed is almost impossible to avoid.

howveer that doesn't excuse anyone laughing at someone nearly being involved in a serious accident.

I'd only just pulled onto the dcw when I discovered he was right up my arse - so he must have pulled on into the outside lane too! As explained, I only ended up in the o/s lane because I'd taken the wrong exit - I don't make a habit of pulling onto fast roads in the fast lane. IMO, there's not excuse for tailgating so "i'd imagine tailgating someone who has moved to the outside lane of a motorway to pick up speed is almost impossible to avoid" dosn't cut it as far as I'm concerned - if you are driving too close, pull back - simple!

"Only a fool breaks the two second rule"

...wasn't that drummed into these people when they took driving lessons!

Mind you I did learn to drive in 1894 or thereabouts.

It's horrible when people drive up behind you like that, I have been verrry stressed in the past about it, especially when I was first driving with my daughter in the back.

People who drive like that are being selfish, so I choose to be equally as selfish. The closer someone is to my bumper the more likely they are to hit me, so I gently slow down, not ridiculously so, only enough to reduce the risk of being hit and killed! When I?m ready I move over to where I want to be.

Not much help for you this time, but hey, maybe next time?.

Doesn?t change the fact that I still think people who drive like this are complete A-holes though!!!!