Why must you stuff it up the inside of my trailer?

Today I took the F500 over to my buddies shop to look over my fab work and on the way home I was reminded why I hate dragging the race car round during weekday traffic. I stayed off of I-15 and used mostly surface streets because off all the people coming into Vegas for New Years Eve

Incident #1:  signal to change from the middle to left lane, there's a truck about a two car lengths back in the left lane and soon as I start moving over he gases it to box me out. I pull back in to the middle lane and he comes roaring up along side, rolls down the window, takes both hands off the wheels, turns his entire up body towards me and starts shaking his fists........mmmm OK. Then he roars ahead, slams on the brakes and swerves like he's going to slam into the side of me. After that he falls back alongside me for some more fist shaking.  At this point rather than being mad I'm just working on not laughing at the poor apoplectic soul. He's driving a really nice brand new Tundra and I'm in a 30 year old E250 Camper Van. The floorboard supports on my van would tear the hell of of the sills on his truck.  Fortunately I was turning left 1/2 mile after crazy dude went bonkers and was quickly rid of him.

Incedent #2: I'm getting on the 95. I'm in the middle lane where the right lane merges with the middle and a woman in a Santa Fe, accelerating hard from 50ft back tries to slide up,the inside and then ends up slacking on the brakes realizing the sound wall on the right is getting very close. My trailer has 3/16" steel fenders so I wasn't to concerned about the trailer being damaged. Note I was keeping up with traffic, so I wasn't plodding along.

Incedent #3: traveling in the left lane on a surface street, road construction narrows the road down to a single lane, I signal and move over and the car that was 150ft back gasses it trying to beat me to the lane change. I'd already fully changed lanes but they where still coming. They got within 50 feet before finally getting on the brakes. This one was pretty minor and pretty standard everyday stuff but after the first two I couldn't wait to get home.

There just seems to be something about towing a car that cause folks to try even more obnoxious behaviour than usual.

(mods please fix my title so it says "must" and not mud........some day I'll proof read)

In reply to Tom1200 :

It's been my experience that if one is pulling a trailer, it seems to bring out the shiny happy person in everyone. I also get amused for the same reasons you do- the ones that get the most irritated would be the ones who have the most expensive body shop bills if I decided to give them some love... steel trailer fenders are cheap. 

Weird. I'm a no BS driver for sure but I can't tell you how many times I've flashed my lights to a driver, like you or even the big boys, so they know I got their backs and can move over.

I'd LOVE to see the above people forced to drive a van and a trailer and see how they do.

Coming back from the in-laws with the motorhome, I was plodding along at 60mph down 71, just hanging out in the right lane.  Three times someone would come flying down the entrance ramp until they were basically even with me and then match my speed.  If they would have maintained their speed, they would have easily made it out in front of me.  But, no... They just got alongside and sat there as they ran out of road. 

I've always found that with the trailer attached all you have to do is let the truck just sort of wander towards the other lane a bit and people will generally get out of the way.  They always seem hyper-agressive towards larger, slower vehicles until they think that driver doesn't see them.

That's why they don't use turn signals in New Jersey.  One blink and the nearest car in the lane you want lifts its nose. 

In reply to 914Driver :

Ive had coworkers, family members and friends who have driven with me say they know one thing about me behind wheel: I will let ANYONE get in front of me if they use their blinkers. They're doing their part and effectively asking my permission to move over so the least I can do is oblige. (But try moving over or merging with no signal? Yeah, good luck with that.)

I've swapped out my high beam bulbs for brighter yellow ones, when I dip the lights to say "C'mon over" there's no mistake.

914Driver said:

That's why they don't use turn signals in New Jersey.  One blink and the nearest car in the lane you want lifts its nose. 

Happens to anyone with out of state plates in Mass as well. 

When I pull a trailer up HWY 99 in Central California I  stay in the left lane a lot , 

the on ramps are so short , some only 200ft or so that no one can get on safely , 

Thats why I normally take I-5  since it does not go thru towns ,  but then you are really in the middle of nowhere !

I would hate to be driving a Big Rig with all the people who cut you off or do not know how to merge,,,,,

Pulling a race car is bad enough, I spent a lot of time on the road pulling racehorses.

When I used to tow the race car with my POS 4.3L pickup, people were constantly trying to RACE me. I'm driving a TRUCK, not the berkeleying RACE CAR!

In reply to californiamilleghia :

My FIL is an owner/operator, and he will not accept any loads going to California for that reason. 

Dash cams.  I watched a lot of crash videos lately and in the comm section there is a growing belief that people are not allowing anyone to merge and deliberately allowing an accident to happen.

My personal take?  I don't care what anyone thinks about it either.

A toxic mix of morality without faith and machismo without masculinity.

Or it could be that Americans have never been particularly polite about merging. 

wae said:

 

I've always found that with the trailer attached all you have to do is let the truck just sort of wander towards the other lane a bit and people will generally get out of the way.  They always seem hyper-agressive towards larger, slower vehicles until they think that driver doesn't see them.

I have to agree with this observation as I find most drivers will give way when you move into their lane or even fake a move.  I always signal my lane changes when towing and most people will give me room but when they don't and I "really" need to move over,  I just start to move over a bit and they then give me the space I need.

On the other hand I always try to give trucks and RV's room to move over if they signal.

I had a guy in a hunk-o-junk Taurus brake check me when I was driving a loaded mini-Freightliner with 30' enclosed car hauler.

I swear, people are getting worse on the highways. We need to ditch all the safety gak and go back to non-collapsible steering columns and metal dashboards. People would drive more politely.

The most pleasant experience I had driving through Chicago was with a rented box truck towing my race car on a trailer. There were no shenanigans from anyone. If I put my blinker on and started moving over slowly, I got whatever lane I wanted whenever I wanted. It was GREAT!

Have you considered plastering your trailer with UHaul branding?

In reply to Tom1200 :

You should try driving a school bus.  30,000 pounds of bus and students cannot simply zoom into an opening.  
If you're forced to a stop or even slow down because you've used up the acceleration lane, you become a rolling road block. And then they are racing past you blocking you from getting into the lane at all.  
Now you've got a bus on the shoulder of the road with kids wanting to get home or class is about to start. 
Now Patience is required because of that slow acceleration, someone will have to drop down below the minimum speed limit or even come to a stop to let you on. 
  They've all got jobs to get to, meetings to be at, clients to meet,  deliveries to make, etc.  Or the same pressures to get home, pick up the kids, etc.  

But let's stop blaming each other.  Traffic is really intense. Look at population growth compared to freeway miles added.  Not anywhere close to keeping up.  Unless we all raise taxes, it won't be getting better anytime soon. 

nutherjrfan said:

Dash cams.  I watched a lot of crash videos lately and in the comm section there is a growing belief that people are not allowing anyone to merge and deliberately allowing an accident to happen.

My personal take?  I don't care what anyone thinks about it either.

A toxic mix of morality without faith and machismo without masculinity.

Or it could be that Americans have never been particularly polite about merging. 

Rant on: I've given up on public road driving and lost all faith in those around me lately.  I've been hit, rear ended no less in 2 company cars, once by a young gentleman on texting on his cell phone who pleaded not to call the cops professing his mother was in the hospital and I was stopping him. He then proceeded to lie to the cops that I somehow merged into him and that's how the back of my car got damaged and it wasn't his fault.  Second time was just sitting at a red light at 630am, lady behind me fell asleep and drove into the back of me.  Come to hink about it I was rear-ended in my truck the same way except the lady behind me saw the green turn arrow when we were in the straight lane and decided that meant I was supposed to go on red, into my trailer hitch.  A lady in a Doctor's office backed into my wife's parked Camaro 1 week before I was selling it as she was getting out of it.  A person forgot to set their ebrake in company parking lot and their mustang rolled into my wife's previous brand new Jeep less than 1 month old.  There is insane level of aggression and carelessness, and I like to arrive home alive and not drive E36 M3 boxes since everyone wants to play bumper cars.  There is no accountability so I'm going to try something new.  Track car for track, cameras for the masses, I'd switch to an AV in a heartbeat so I don't have to worry about the silly people.

In reply to Raze :

Around here it's gotten so bad with people being just blatantly inept, nervous, etc. that I wish I could permanently revoke the licenses of about every other person I see on a daily basis.  

I didn't even list the normally stupidity like the driver who stopped in the middle of a left turn because they realized they actually needed to go straight or the goobers so busy chatting they didn't see the lane they were in was exit only..........those are easy to see coming.

the one I saw today was a lady just stop in the middle of an intersection, she was making a left, but gave no indication what she was doing. As it was only a 2 lane road, she could have gone right or even straight once she figured what she was doing, so I was forced to sit behind her while people honked at me.

As an ex-commercial driver, I have seen most everything people are complaining about and more. On my daily commute I have to deal with hyperspeeders (20+ over the limit) no signals, people driving with their high beams on all the time, and nobody wanting to let people merge.

The best was towing my boat back from Lake Champlain. I had a van from Ontario try to merge behind me. How he missed the 23 foot long, white hulled boat I was towing is beyond me. that boat weighs 3200 pounds, that may not sound like a lot, but 1500 of that is pure lead, not something you want to run into or have fall on top of your car.

I also agree with some of those videos, the cammer is often just as guilty as the people that hit them. I see somebody with their signal on, I will slow to let them in. I once got road raged at due to that. I came up on a semi stuck in a construction zone. The right lane had ended and nobody let him out of it, so he was just sitting there with his signal on for a good 5 minutes till I inched up to him. I let him out and the guy behind me went ballistic. Honking, waving his arms, and screaming at me. Not 50 meters later, the road went back to double lanes and the semi and I moved right while this idiot moved up next to me and continued to honk, wave his arms, and scream. After checking my mirrors, I smiled, waved, and stood on the brake. My BMW had 330is brakes and star specs, so it would almost give you change from that dime it stopped on. I think he was going to stop too when he noticed the Semi was also on the brakes, he then beat it out of there.

Kylini said:

The most pleasant experience I had driving through Chicago was with a rented box truck towing my race car on a trailer. There were no shenanigans from anyone. If I put my blinker on and started moving over slowly, I got whatever lane I wanted whenever I wanted. It was GREAT!

 

Have you considered plastering your trailer with UHaul branding?

Thats just bizzare.

The only time I've ever had something like that is when I rolled out of the city towing 10,000 of Bobcat and trailer on 90 at about 1:30AM. From 5 in the morning to about 7:30 at night it's wall to wall shiny happy people.

nutherjrfan said:

My personal take?  I don't care what anyone thinks about it either.

A toxic mix of morality without faith and machismo without masculinity.

Agreed! 

ebonyandivory said:

nutherjrfan said:

My personal take?  I don't care what anyone thinks about it either.

A toxic mix of morality without faith and machismo without masculinity.

Agreed! 

Faith has nothing to do with anything.  Other than that I agree.

Adrian_Thompson said:

ebonyandivory said:

nutherjrfan said:

My personal take?  I don't care what anyone thinks about it either.

A toxic mix of morality without faith and machismo without masculinity.

Agreed! 

Faith has nothing to do with anything.  Other than that I agree.

Maybe for you but please don't speak for the rest of us that disagree.

Believing that you're not the be-all-end-all in this world and that paying it forward is why we're here does have to do with how some of us treat each other.