ljibis

This past weekend about 20 members (including myself) of the Nord Stern PCA and local Benz club cruised some back roads from Minneapolis to New Ulm, MN for their German Heritage Festival. We were followed the last 5 miles into town by a 2 deputy sheriff cars and one Minnesota HP trooper.

Apparently, our caravan (which never exceeded 80, and only then on a deserted county road) had garnered 2 complaints - one for excessive speed, and one for tailgating and unsafe passing. The trooper said that both plaintiffs wanted to sign the complaints, thus he could give each of us in the caravan tickets no matter what.

I'm not sure if that's B.S. or not, but after giving us a lecture he left and no tickets were issued. If there really were complaints, the people are total jerk*sses. Number 1, we were in a caravan and if some people got passed so we could stay together, so friggin' what. It's gonna happen. I was towards the back the whole way, and didn't see any unsafe passing or tailing from anyone. The guy behind me in the Benz ML gave the same assessment. Number 2, we didn't break 80 the whole way down.

The trooper said it well - "You have to realize that 20 brightly colored sports cars are going to attract some attention, whether it was justified or not."

Dash01

FWIW, I just sent a message to WA State Patrol on their website ratline--that's the one they set up for people to anonymously rat on aggressive drivers and road rage.

I respectfully requested that troopers start actually enforcing left-lane-for-passing rules, trucks-in-right-lane-only rules, "delay-of-5-vehicles" rules, etc.. with the comment that if the cops would enforce such rules, most "aggressive driver" and "road rage" incidents would evaporate and we could manage traffic more safely and smoothly. German autobahns, after all, have much lower fatality rates, despite much higher speeds and/or no speed limits in some areas.

And, while I agree the tree-hugger syndrome prevents or delays highway improvements, there seems a lot more to it than that: Since nobody can be that consistently ignorant or stupid, surely many of these obstructive drivers do it on purpose. Freud would call these types "**** retentive" or "anally fixated" personalities which derive pleasure from their obstructive behavior. The apt layman's term for this is "*******."

I'm very glad the drive friendly thing is still practiced in Texas and other places, demonstrating that road courtesy is still a good & workable idea, and that it would work here, too, if encouraged.

Tony K

Dash -

Two things -

1) Someone may correct me, but I believe Freud's theory about "****" was that people who are fastidious and obsessed with neatness/properness/etc. often have a heightened sense of pleasure/erogenous zone around the anus. For some reason or another, these people tend to hold their feces in as long as possible, then feel good when they let it out finally. Any more learned on Freud, please correct me. . . But anyway, not sure what this has to do with deriving pleasure from obstructive (controlling?) behavior? Am I missing a link here? Does Freud's theory continue to discuss this?

2) What is "delay-of-5-vehicles"? Sorry, I'm ignorant...


Thanks,

Tony

UDPride

I think if you impede 5 or more vehicles from getting somewhere you are allowed to be pulled from your car, bound with duct tape, and thrown into a retention pond.

Tony K

Got it...

Regarding the "impede 5 or more vehicles" part, do many/most/all states have such laws? How about Ohio specifically?

Dash01

Ok, Tony, you prolly got me on technicalities of Freudian psychology, as I took some layman's liberties with the definition.

The main point here is, some folks ENJOY impeding traffic, so I drew a Freudian* analogy. I once knew a guy (AF test pilot) who'd often come to work in the morning snickering about drivers he'd blocked from using the right freeway exit. As a test pilot, he cannot be described as having no "situational awareness." He had superb situational awareness, and used it daily in his favorite sport--blocking other drivers and making them late to work. Around here, this sort of passive-aggressive, controlling, anti-social behavior is (sadly) too common. Rather than applying slight momentary clockwise pressure to the steering wheel to give way to a passing driver, they insist on blocking traffic, so cars get bunched in clusters with 5-20 drivers vainly waiting to pass one of these obstuctors. Whidbey Island is Valhalla for these folks.

"Delay of 5 vehicles" refers to roadside highway department signs here in WA State warning drivers not to delay traffic. If they hold up 5 or more vehicles, that's a specific infraction and can result in a ticket & fine. Frankly, I don't see why these jerks should get a 5 vehicle bag limit, as holding up even one vehicle seems pretty rude to me. At some point, some obstructed driver is bound to take risks he othewise would/should not, just to get around the obstruciton. So, an obstructing driver sets the stage for "aggressive driving," risk, and inevitable tragedy. A Canadian study found that ~85% of drivers commonly resort to "aggressive" tactics to get around the ~15% of drivers who practice obstruction or are oblivious.

My point: If the cops would expend SOME effort on correcting obstructors, there would be much less need for "aggressive" tactics and we'd all enjoy safer driving. Traffic cops have a duty to shepherd safe and smooth traffic flow, and their ignoring obstructive drivers thwarts that common good.

*BTW didn't Freud say that retention in & of itself was pleasurable to **** personalities? That seems the case with some of the ******* drivers around here.

ZV

Ahh, but curing the disease rather than punishing the symptoms would decrease ticket revenue by a large degree. It's much more profitable to go after the speeders/aggressive drivers because a judge is more likely to let an obstructor off with a warning since it appears on the surface to be far less flagrant than an aggressive driver.

Aaron

Tony K

Dash -

Thanks for the clarification!

- T

88black944

A taxi driver in Sydney gets cut off by a 20yo in a WRX. The _passenger_ in the front seat of the taxi flips the bird at the WRX driver. Down the road, the WRX driver stops, forcing the taxi to stop. The WRX driver gets out and starts smashing windows on the taxi. The taxi driver gets out of the taxi, kills the guy by stabbing him three times with a screwdriver in the head.

and mark said this ended badly....

88black944

and in my opinion, andrenaline or no adrenaline, shooting a guy in the kneecap would be sooo muuucch moorre funnn

m21sniper

It would also be very unprofessional.

944na_whorhay

The reason it is not advisable to shoot to disable is lawsuits. In the same way you do not shoot to kill some one. In all cases you should be shooting to stop some one from threatening your life. The most effective way to do this is to shoot at the largest target, which is the chest or torso.

You do not aim for the head because in court the deceased persons family will claim that if you were a good enough marksman to trust your safety in hitting the smaller target you could have as easily disabled them by shooting them in the leg. Hence you are liable for wrongful death.

If you shoot to disable some one you might not do so in a manner that saves your life. If you survive and they do also, you are going to be sued for possibly maiming them even if it was in defense of your life. You were a good enough marksman to trust your life shooting them in the knee, why didn't you shoot them in the thigh instead so as not to permanently cripple them.

Snipers aim for the chest unless the kill needs to be instant without any nervous system twitching. In which case the aim point is a two inch square between the top of the mough and the nose. That is a lot smaller than a torso and an unnecessary risk in most situations.

Now if we are talking about a case where no one is going to know you did the shooting go for the more entertaining choice of a knee cap or shin.

For most road rage cases though I would recommend memorizing a plate number and getting the hell out of dodge before you have to make a life or death choice.

m21sniper

"Snipers aim for the chest unless the kill needs to be instant without any nervous system twitching. In which case the aim point is a two inch square between the top of the mough and the nose. That is a lot smaller than a torso and an unnecessary risk in most situations."

The brain bucket is the preferred target when sniping at close range. A projectile zipping through your cranial cavity at close to Mach 3 makes quite a mess of things.

At longer ranges it's strictly center mass shots.

testarossa_td

T2 anyone "He'll live"

Probably true...