Tailgators and Then Some...
Instructor's Homepage
Imagine this senario. It is late at night, and you are driving in an
unfamilar area. You are driving normally when some one begins tailgating
you. You probably are perplexed, for you are driving at the speed limit,
yet the driver behind you seems to want you to go faster. A few miles
later, you look back and still see the same car. What would you do?
This scenario is all to real for me. A few years ago, I was
driving home with my paramour and nephew. Soon we noted a car follwing
us closely. Apparently, though we were driving 55mph in a 50mph zone,
we were not driving fast enough for the tailgator, who was intent on
increasing our speed. At first, I pretended not to notice and slowed slightly, but this only infuriated the
driver. The driver then activated the high beams, thus blinding me as
the light reflected off the rearview mirror.
"Where is this turkey going?" asked my paramour, squinting.
"To a chicken fight," I retorted, stiffling my urge to laugh at
the unintended pun.
"He no like lose his money," my nephew chortled. "He must be late
already!"
I did not alter my driving in any way, but ducked to avoid the
bright mirror. My nephew, seeing my distress, wrote a curse word on a
white sheet of paper and held it against the glass. My paramour and I
laughed hard, then told my nephew to stop, or we may get into trouble. My
nephew stopped, but pulled his pants down and "mooned" the pursuer. I
tightened my grip on the steering wheel and began laughing so hard that the whole car shimmied. Looking back, I knew
I shouldn't have laughed, for it may have appeared to the others that I
was condoning the act of tailgating and my dear nephew's handling of the
situation, but it was so funny at the time.
The driver seemed so angry at this point that we began to worry. The
driver honked the horn and flashed the beams up and down. The
opportunity for the driver to overtake us arised many times, but for
some reason, the driver chose to continue tailgating us. It was becoming
fightening. I considered the possibility that we could submit to the
tailgators intentions, but that would mean breaking the speed limit
and the law.
We finally eluded the driver a few miles later by abruptly turning
down a side street. The driver, who was driving too fast, could not follow even
if that had been the intent. We breathed a collected sigh of relief and
relived the events of the day all the way home.
Tailgating can be interpreted as a method of forcing one's will
over another driver, but not in every case. For example, there are some
people who tailgate out of sheer habit, some who were not taught that
tailgating shows a lack of driving ettiquette, and some who simply prefer
to follow closely. They are not intending to intimidate or urge the
driver in front of them to hurry, but are simply driving in the only way
that they have learned.
Here are some interpretations from my peers. Check out these
enlightening reports.