The Iggblog

There’s something to be said for “stage zero” of defensive driving. that being the set of actions done to avoid a dangerous situation before any actual defensive driving is neccecary.

There was this tool driving around in his Dreadnaught class SUV (Yukon XL “Mothership Edition” or something). He was weaving in and out of traffic on 495 (3 lane divided highway) without using turning signals. Traffic was only moderately dense and very calm, so he was only being the archetypal SUV inhabitant… not so much an ubertool.

My exit was coming up, so I began to meander over to the right hand lane at about a half mile out. I saw that the battlecruiser I’d observed earlier was alone in the middle lane and going at a more human pace. As I neared the exit, my nose was at about his rear quarterpanel. Then he decided he needed to take that exit. To my surprise he used his turning signal. He made up for this anomalous bout of sanity by attempting to merge into me, rather than hitting the afterburners to get in front of me or (God forbid) letting off and falling behind me. He did this with a clear sense of urgency. Rather than becoming intimate with the guard rail, I got real friendly with my anti-lock brakes (which I’d been meaning to test out anyways, so really he was doing me a favor). I managed to avoid what would have been a nasty if not fatal accident. After his frantic maneuvering to get to the exit ramp in time, we slowed to “SUV cornering speed” (20 mph). This gave me a chance to give him the sort of stare that one generally reserves for these situations.

When we got to the end of the ramp, I got ahead of him as his he slowly taxied his lumbering hulk to the speed of traffic. He got right up on my ass, because apparently my stare unjustified. Good thing I didn’t use hand signals as well, or he would have really shown me. After a few moments of him airing his balls out for all to see by riding me as close as physically possible, I figured I should probably diffuse the situation. rather than do the time-honored “brake check” method, I opted for “stage zero” which turned out ot be remarkably satisfying. I extended my arm out the sunroof, cellphone in hand with the keypad facing him. I hit “9-1-1” and feigned hitting the send button. I put the phone up to my ear, and bobbed my head around as if I was talking in a “heated state”. He made the “WTF?!” motion with his hands, as if to say “what the hell, man! we were just playing!”. Then he backed right the hell off. A minute or so later, he was cruising in the right hand lane behind a semi-truck. I felt so left out… all the sudden he didn’t want to play with me.

So that’s my story. Diffused a dangerous situation on the road without having to compound it. the crux of stage zero.