So, on Monday morning I turned off J14 of the M1 and looked forward to the final sequence of roundabouts leading to the office.. what happened next beggars belief, and I just wondered what anyone else would do or advise in the same situation..
Turning right off the inside of the first roundabout (by the Jaguar garage, if you know it), I accelerated to catch up with the traffic 50 yards ahead; in the meantime a black Scirocco just ahead in the left lane of the dual carriageway started indicating to move out, so as there was plenty of distance to the next roundabout and nobody behind, I chose to avoid being held up by another car so accelerated past the VW quickly and let it pull out behind me.
Only 100 yards later we both stopped at the next roundabout, the black Scirocco pulled up next to me with an irate red-faced potato-headed driver seemingly spitting fumes onto his window in my direction.
Bad move #1: I opened my passenger window to let him air his views.. essentially he wanted to furiously inform me that it wasn't very courteous of me to not let him out, to which I responded that indicators are not an automatic signal for passing drivers to let him change lanes regardless, and he then seemed to think he was justified because he was 'indicating for ages', which was certainly not the case; neither had I cut him up or otherwise prevented him moving into his intended lane.
Point made, I closed the window and accelerated away up to an indicated 75 mph over the next section of carriageway. Meanwhile, the slower accelerating Scirocco, clearly having to travel faster than me, caught up with me on the inside lane, windows still shut, with the driver only centimetres from me and still spitting fumes in my direction whilst both travelling at 75 mph!! I ignored making eye contact, but bore in mind that this was clearly not safe behaviour on any public roads, but it would have been unsafe to brake or accelerate or respond to the other driver.
At the next roundabout we both had to stop, and still the driver (with windows shut) continued to 'communicate' his rage or frustration in my direction, which I ignored whilst attempting to drive 'as normal'.
This continued over a sequence of the next two or three roundabouts, including a section of dual carriageway where even though one of the lanes was closed, the VW driver still intentionally drove alongside me until the very last moment where he was forced to pull in behind me due to the road cones. At all points I avoided eye contact as I wanted to avoid something stupid and dangerous happening to me or other road users.
Eventually, after the third roundabout, he decided to stop chasing me and turned off in another direction as I watched in the mirror.
It was only at that point that I realised I didn't have his numberplate (Bad move #2), or any photos, and that I was in-fact extremely disturbed that somebody could display such despicable and dangerous behaviour on a public road, endangering another driver, simply because they couldn't change lanes at exactly the moment they wanted to.
I've since looked at what my options could have been, and it seems that the police take a dim view if I was to have filmed the driver - I recently filmed a dangerous tailgating Megabus driver on the M4, sent it the met police's 'roadsafe' team, and they told me that because I was driving and filming, they would have prosecuted me if they had my address! The alternative would be to install car cameras, but again, these imply a victim mentality to me, do not film to the sides of the car, which was the danger in this situation. Perhaps the best advice is to not react and to ignore the other driver?
Thanks for reading, and sorry for an atypical negative post - I hope your responses will help me feel more positive about the 99.999999 percent of driving experiences out there!
Turning right off the inside of the first roundabout (by the Jaguar garage, if you know it), I accelerated to catch up with the traffic 50 yards ahead; in the meantime a black Scirocco just ahead in the left lane of the dual carriageway started indicating to move out, so as there was plenty of distance to the next roundabout and nobody behind, I chose to avoid being held up by another car so accelerated past the VW quickly and let it pull out behind me.
Only 100 yards later we both stopped at the next roundabout, the black Scirocco pulled up next to me with an irate red-faced potato-headed driver seemingly spitting fumes onto his window in my direction.
Bad move #1: I opened my passenger window to let him air his views.. essentially he wanted to furiously inform me that it wasn't very courteous of me to not let him out, to which I responded that indicators are not an automatic signal for passing drivers to let him change lanes regardless, and he then seemed to think he was justified because he was 'indicating for ages', which was certainly not the case; neither had I cut him up or otherwise prevented him moving into his intended lane.
Point made, I closed the window and accelerated away up to an indicated 75 mph over the next section of carriageway. Meanwhile, the slower accelerating Scirocco, clearly having to travel faster than me, caught up with me on the inside lane, windows still shut, with the driver only centimetres from me and still spitting fumes in my direction whilst both travelling at 75 mph!! I ignored making eye contact, but bore in mind that this was clearly not safe behaviour on any public roads, but it would have been unsafe to brake or accelerate or respond to the other driver.
At the next roundabout we both had to stop, and still the driver (with windows shut) continued to 'communicate' his rage or frustration in my direction, which I ignored whilst attempting to drive 'as normal'.
This continued over a sequence of the next two or three roundabouts, including a section of dual carriageway where even though one of the lanes was closed, the VW driver still intentionally drove alongside me until the very last moment where he was forced to pull in behind me due to the road cones. At all points I avoided eye contact as I wanted to avoid something stupid and dangerous happening to me or other road users.
Eventually, after the third roundabout, he decided to stop chasing me and turned off in another direction as I watched in the mirror.
It was only at that point that I realised I didn't have his numberplate (Bad move #2), or any photos, and that I was in-fact extremely disturbed that somebody could display such despicable and dangerous behaviour on a public road, endangering another driver, simply because they couldn't change lanes at exactly the moment they wanted to.
I've since looked at what my options could have been, and it seems that the police take a dim view if I was to have filmed the driver - I recently filmed a dangerous tailgating Megabus driver on the M4, sent it the met police's 'roadsafe' team, and they told me that because I was driving and filming, they would have prosecuted me if they had my address! The alternative would be to install car cameras, but again, these imply a victim mentality to me, do not film to the sides of the car, which was the danger in this situation. Perhaps the best advice is to not react and to ignore the other driver?
Thanks for reading, and sorry for an atypical negative post - I hope your responses will help me feel more positive about the 99.999999 percent of driving experiences out there!
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