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jimbob_racing
jimbob_racing HalfDork
2/22/09 5:49 p.m.

Just happened Saturday afternoon almost in front of my house. I was on my way home from work and had just stopped at the carwash to clean off my red Miata. It was wearing it's hardtop but you could still plainly see the roll bar inside. I was stopped on the main street in my area and had to wait for traffic before I could turn left onto my side road. As I turned and headed to my house (four houses down) I saw a woman in her 50s walking a dog on a leash. As I passed her she yelled "slow down!" I instinctively glanced at my speedometer and saw it registering slightly above 20 MPH which is well under the 25 MPH limit on my street.

Normally I'd just brush it off but I was really pissed. I was two freaking houses away from my driveway and there is no way I drive like a jerk in my neighborhood. I pulled into my driveway, backed out and headed back up the street towards her. She heard me coming because she had a look of panic on her face-maybe she thought I was going to run her down or something. Anyway, I stop, put down the window and say I'm sorry but I passed you at 20 MPH which is well under the limit. She ignores me and says that I came flying into the street from the main road. I counter that I was stopped up at the intersection and had to wait for traffic to clear before I could turn so I doubt I was going much more than 10-15 MPH when I entered the side street. Logic be damned, she goes on about how I'm ruining the quality of life in the neighborhood by driving through it. I turn around and point to my house two doors down and told her that I live right there and have never been accused of speeding or driving crazy in the area.

Totally out of points to make she starts calling me an shiny happy person who needs to learn how to drive-blah blah blah. My brain shut down at that point so I told her to have a nice day and I backed up the two houses to my driveway and parked. She stood there and watched me go into my house before continuing to walk her dog. How I stayed calm and civil was beyond me but once I got inside my house I began to get really pissed off.

Instead of stewing about it I called our local police department and told the dispatcher that somebody was walking a dog on my street with out a poopbag visible. I furnished a description and when I looked out the window I could see that the lady had revered courses and was heading back down the street the way she originally came from. About 25 minutes later I had a knock on my door from a nice police officer. He asked if I had filed the complaint about the woman and when I told him yes, he told me that he talked to her and apparently she has been warned in the past about not picking up after her do so he cited her for it. Karma rocks!

Monkeywrench
Monkeywrench Reader
2/22/09 5:57 p.m.

I've had a lady yell at me for doing 10mph down a 15mph alley constantly and threatened to call the cops on me several times. I think most of it had to do with the fact that I was in 1st gear instead of second. I now just coast past her house and and continue on my way.

Due to their size and the fact that they are a sports car, Miata's look like they're going faster than they really are.

DirtyBird222
DirtyBird222 HalfDork
2/22/09 6:08 p.m.

yes, as a pizza delivery driver, then the person only tipped me $0. Burnout ensued.

Apexcarver
Apexcarver SuperDork
2/22/09 6:22 p.m.

dont get me started on the crap ive gotten from driving my flomaster exhausted mustang . at slightly above idle in 2nd gear even.

guy walked 2 roads over and came onto my property to ream me out.

natch, the guy was in his 80's. after listening to his complaint and giving him a few minutes to steam (he wasnt steaming down). (he also said he wanted to talk to my parents, sorry buddy, im a legal adult) i finally told him he was trespassing and that he had 10 seconds to leave before i called the cops.

Noone on my road has anything bad to say about how i drive, ive even asked them and they confirmed that im one of the slower people driving in the neighborhood.

JThw8
JThw8 Dork
2/22/09 6:32 p.m.

I think Apexarver called it. If it sounds loud they assume its fast. I had an alfa out on my street one day trying to tune in the carbs. The exhaust was loud but I never got it above 10mph (in a 25) and one of the neighbors came out screaming about me speeding up and down the street.

Not much I could do to make her happy so instead I just make sure to have the RPMs nice and high (and the clutch in) when I passed her house. Juvenile but it made me feel better.

Travis_K
Travis_K Reader
2/22/09 6:38 p.m.

Yea, when driving though neighborhoods, 15mph in first gear will get you yelled at, 30 mph in 4th wont. thats just the way it is.

friedgreencorrado
friedgreencorrado Reader
2/22/09 6:41 p.m.

Another vote for Apexcarver. I've got one Corrado with the catalytic converter, and one without (both have aftermarket pipes). People ignore the quiet one, but give me dirty looks in the loud one, even though I'm driving the same speed..and I treat neighborhoods as a "no wake zone".

http://www.crotonblog.com/archives/upload/2006/08/no-wake-bouy-croton-river-thumb.jpg

ddavidv
ddavidv SuperDork
2/22/09 6:45 p.m.

It's always the AARP crowd, and they have hollered at me every time I've been actually driving within the confines of the law. I'm convinced these retirees are simply people with nothing else going on in their lives, so they create crises to deal with.

I do my best never to crap in my own backyard, though there is one hill with a turn on it that nobody lives around I know they hear me in the BMW.

Dorsai
Dorsai New Reader
2/22/09 6:51 p.m.

I got the same treatment in my Miata, and this was the old one with a stock exhaust. I was going maybe 25 in a 30 zone. Lady walking her dog hollers "Slow Down!" at me. 25 mph in second gear. Sheesh.

I didn't back up and tell her so, but it irritated me and I wished I had all the way to my destination.

walterj
walterj HalfDork
2/22/09 6:54 p.m.

Usually they just silently brood, or mutter stuff I can't hear but once... when I 1st got my 964 I was in my friends neighborhood and I was just giving him a ride around the block... ya know the bit... 2nd gear, maybe 20-25mph, goose it a little around a turn so you can hear it... this old guy comes running down his driveway yelling and shaking his fist in the air.

At first it really didn't register that he was actually yelling at me so we pull into my buddies driveway about a block down and rev the engine a little... make faces at his wife, honk the horn. The guy is in the middle of the street shouting expletives, making all kind of threats, etc. We go in the house laughing and tell his wife that there is some nut ranting about us in the road. She tells us that he does not even live there and is just watching the house for his daughter. She offered to go lay a patch in their driveway if I'd let her drive the car... and I'd like to finish this story with the part where she actually did it... but we just drank beer and replaced the rear glass on his E30 with lexan.

The End.

PS... this kind of story is why I don't write action thrillers for the big screen.

Nashco
Nashco SuperDork
2/22/09 6:56 p.m.

There's a woman on my street that has hollered at me a few times as I drive by. I'm never driving over the speed limit when it happens and every time it has happened she's out by the front porch watching her kids play right by the street. Call me an a-hole, but it seems to me it's a parent's responsibility to teach their kids to stay out of the street (and enforce it). When I grew up my mommy and daddy taught me that cars hurt really, really bad. There are about ten parks within a mile of here with many acres of play space, why would you let your kids play by the street anyway? Walk your lazy ass to the park that's five blocks away and take advantage of the great local parks.

I've never gone and said anything to the lady, I ignore her and nothing ever happens out of it.

Bryce

CarKid1989
CarKid1989 Reader
2/22/09 7:26 p.m.

I had that happen. 25 in the twisty devlopment across the street with HOA nazis. I mean these people fly through at 40MPH plus cause i have paced them. And i get scolded for driving reckless and how everyone hates me and will call the cops on me.

alstevens
alstevens New Reader
2/22/09 7:29 p.m.

Today by my 19 yr old son. Lots of ice and snow makes it a bit of fun. Buick LaSabre's are tanks in the winter.

thatsnowinnebago
thatsnowinnebago HalfDork
2/22/09 7:38 p.m.

I got flipped off, swerved at, and yelled at by a guy in a full size dodge when I was cruising up a steep, twisty road in the miata. I was going roughly 20 in a 25 far to the right side of the road on a blind left hander. I guess some people just suck.

stuart in mn
stuart in mn Dork
2/22/09 7:42 p.m.

Only once, and I was doing about 25 in a 30 zone. I couldn't figure it out.

ValuePack
ValuePack HalfDork
2/22/09 7:50 p.m.

Many times. The one that stands out was by an old lady whilst doing about 15mph in a 30 in a dead stock Tercel. A speed demon, I am.

I was road raged for the first time a few weeks ago... still trying to figure that one out.

Luke
Luke Dork
2/22/09 7:58 p.m.

No one's ever said anything, but I get plenty of disapproving looks every time I leave my driveway, usually by the uppity dog-walking lady. This is probably due to me being the only renter with a noisy old car, in a street full of upper-class elderly folk with landscaped gardens and silent Honda Accords and Audis. I always wave politely, too.

aussiesmg
aussiesmg Dork
2/22/09 8:18 p.m.

My neighbors have given up on me, one rotary engine clean up with Sea-Foam and open headers, after that everything else seems quiet.

11110000
11110000 New Reader
2/22/09 8:37 p.m.

Yeah, it's usually the RPM. I can go by at 15MPH in first gear and get scowls of disapproval, but 40MPH in 4'th is fine...

neon4891
neon4891 SuperDork
2/22/09 8:58 p.m.

I wasn't driving, but the test ride I took in my Current neon. The seller took full advantage of the gearing and fart can. When we where about to pull back in to his complex a guy in droopy jeans and a wife beater ran out into the road throwing a E36 M3 fit.

mad_machine
mad_machine SuperDork
2/22/09 8:59 p.m.

I have not been yelled at to slow down in a number of years.. not since I was 18 and had a loud Porsche powered Super beetle. And I was pulling out of a rock paved parking lot too.. with minimal wheel spin.. so honestly, it was all noise.

As for roadrage... I have experienced that once, and for the life of me, I have no clue what I did to deserve it.

slantvaliant
slantvaliant Reader
2/22/09 9:16 p.m.

A few times, by the guy on a corner near home. I never quite figured out why. My Valiant is neither loud nor flashy, not do I drive it in a sporting manner anywhere near neighborhoods. Maybe it was the white and primer apaloosa paint it wore for years. I never saw him going after anyone else.
His technique of registering disapproval was to try to block the street with his car or pickup, then yell. Haven't heard from him for quite a while, and don't miss it.

joey48442
joey48442 Dork
2/22/09 9:55 p.m.

Who else has been yelled at for speeding when you were actially speeding?

Nowadays I don't really speed at all. A pizza guy with a mortgage... I gotta be careful. If anyone were to yell at me, I would ask them to see the display on their radar gun.

Joel

patgizz
patgizz Dork
2/22/09 9:58 p.m.

i've been yelled at to slow down - always in a development area in low gear going 20mph and always by some old fart. my work trucks are always loud as summit's sub $20 mufflers last a long time so that is what i run, and it's always been in one of the trucks and not one of the fun cars.

i LOVE not living in a "neighborhood" - my parents' house and my new house are on 45mph roads with not many houses around and no neighbors to piss off.

donalson
donalson SuperDork
2/22/09 10:12 p.m.

yup back in the day with my mr2 delivering pizza... i had a cherry bomb for an exhaust... pulled into a trailer park and an old lady made her way over to where I was and yelled to slow down... i left the park in 1st gear... i never drove to fast with that car while delivering...

had another one more recently... was making a delivery in another trailer park... with a very quiet car (near new Taurus)... was one of those trailer parks thats one road with trailers on either side... her house was the 1st one... she was taking her trash out as I passed going in... she waved me down and 1/2 jumped in front of my car on the way out with her yelling for me to stop... wasn't happening... i'd been robbed within few blocks just a week prior... apparently she was the manager of the trailer park... she called the store and wanted to talk to me... she wanted an apology.. which I gave... it went something along the lines of "i'm sorry I didn't stop for you... I was robbed near there recently... and you didn't order a pizza... i wasn't about to stop near your house... and... "i'm sorry you thought i was speeding though your trailer park"... then she went off on me about how it was a mobile home community... I informed her that they where indeed trailers as they had wheels and had been towed there... then told her i was done talking to her and handed the phone to my manager... came to find out she liked to complain about pizza drivers... she was a regular caller to our store...

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