Nutter on 495

[Wanderer]

Had an interesting ride home - usually fairly uneventful aside from dense traffic.

I switched over to the passing lane, maintaining faster speed than the other two lanes - pretty steady traffic in all 3 lanes.
A mile or so in, a chevy camaro with heavily tinted windows moves in behind me - in front of me is a bmw 3 series doing a good speed.
The chevy slowly closes until he is absurdly close to me, maybe 2 feet.
I give the 'back please' wave - no movement. A couple of taps of the rear brake - no movement other than to get closer. At this point I cant move over to the middle lane, very dense traffic. Eventually I get a gap - I move across into the middle lane to slow and let the asshole by - and he moves with me, continuing to tailgate as close as he possibly can.
Moving back into the left lane as traffic passes faster in order to try to make space he also matches that move and continues to tailgate as close as he can.

Thankfully my exit comes up right as traffic opens up enough - liberal application of throttle to speeds I'd never usually do on the highway gets me away from him, and off toward my offramp.

Except something is very wrong with this guy - as I make the apex of my turn on the offramp (its a prettymuch 180 degree exit) I see the same damn chevy blowing the corner behind me - apparently floored it to try to catchup and overcooked the corner, ending up in the grass runoff outside the corner.

Sadly the usually-present cop at the 117 intersection wasn't there, so I behaved somewhat squidly and put some serious space between myself and this guy as soon as possible - not sure if he made it back on the ramp or rejoined 495.

Either way, I've not had someone gun directly for me that badly before - and really could not disengage - traffic density stopped most lane switches and those I did make he followed. I suppose I could have progressively slowed but given how close the guy was, I'm not sure he would have had time to react - or cared if he hit me.

In general it was a rather scary situation - limited options without doing something really risky (splitting/passing on the median tarmac to get away)
Not at all cool, but not sure what options I had left! Kept an eye open for a cop but sadly no joy during or shortly after all this

[scubasteveRR]

hmmm heavy tinted camero... was it black? i wouldn't be surprised if it was a state trooper messing with you, they have one of those on the road that I've seen a couple times. he might not have blown the corner so much as pulling up on it?

not saying it definitley was since you said you really went fast. i'm sure he would have pulled you over. but then again? you never know.

[Wanderer]

Hm - was very tinted but given i saw a bit north of 130 I would have thought he would have lit up.

I have run into the usual 'pickup that swerves when you overtake' jerks on backroads, but this was downright scary. Never had the feeling that someone has actively wanted/was trying to make me crash before

[butcher bergs]

Must be a Camaro thing because I had some jerkass in an older one do something similar 'cept it was on a rainy night and I actually had room to clear some distance right away.

Glad to see you didn't have too much trouble, all things considered.

[Garandman]

Did it have a Harley decal in the back window?

[nhbubba]

You're on a multi? Thats definitely sporty enough. My guess is the punk driver saw a 'sport bike' and the though "I can play too" crossed their minuscule brain. Maybe you made a semi aggressive move into the lane. Maybe someone on a motorcycle cut him off in a previous life. Maybe his GF ran off with some guy on a duc once. Maybe he was dropped too many times as a child. Whatever the cause, his inner ass-hat took over, decided he had to prove his worth to you.

I usually only really notice this from the hopped up civic type crowd myself. Although now that I'm commuting to greener fields, high end 'sport sedans' have shown up too.

Although I notice it a helluva lot less on my new V-Strom.

I think the ideal solution is to pull into the far right lane and slow down. Pull in behind someone going extra slow and make it painfully obvious you aren't interested in playing. Within a moment or two they'll get bored and roll out past you, declaring themselves 'winner'. Having been summarily defeated, you can move on with life.

That said, more often than not, I do pretty much what you did.

[Expat]

I have had that happen in the past.
I usually accellerate to a car in the middle lane but with space to cross directly into the inside, pull in front and slow down (so now I am on the inside lane) most times, the guy tailgaing will be carrying enough speed that he then has to pass the car in the middle lane. Then pull back out behing the car you just passed putting him between you and the tailgater. Now you are following rather than being followed. A much safer position to be in. The asshole will then hopefully get bored and find someone else to harass!!

[catch2otwo]

I give the 'back please' wave - no movement. A couple of taps of the rear brake - no movement other than to get closer.

This is where I would have done things differently. I would have just gassed it and split lanes to get a few lengths ahead. Riding in SF for the last two years has taught me that there really is no such thing as reasoning with people in cars. glad you came out unscathed!

[OreoGaborio]

some people make me wish it was legal to shoot someone just for being an asshole.

Not to kill em or anything... Just.... blow off one of their toes or somethin.

[nhbubba]

...has taught me that there really is no such thing as reasoning with people.

Fixed this for you. It isn't just people in cars anymore.

So I had an odd bit of ass-hatery this morning. Not even sure if it was intentional. Pulling on Rt 3, 50% of the people are slow as balls and act as if they have never merged onto a highway before. The other half crank the wheel for the left lane and mash the go-pedal; they wouldn't yield for the Pope. So this AM I've got my head on the swivel, scanning mirrors, working my signals and just trying to avoid getting killed. Superman pulls up behind me in his ~2001 shitbox Focus and proceeds to ride my ass like no other. I want to move left, but there's a car coming and I'm not quite that stoopid. (Not quite.) So I wait it out. As soon as the car pulls up next to me superman behind me blasts over a lane. That's cool, will have him in front of me. As soon as I fall in behind him he blasts his windshield sprayers at ~50 MPH. 99% of the stuff lands on me! He then pulls another super-aggressive lane change for the far left and is gone.

Trying to decide if it was a coincidence, or intentional. I did not enjoy the bath. Fortunately I had my visor down. Guess I got a free visor wash out of it?!

I seriously need to get my resume tuned up and out there.

[Cheese]

My guess is the punk driver saw a 'sport bike' and the though "I can play too" crossed their minuscule brain. Maybe you made a semi aggressive move into the lane. Maybe someone on a motorcycle cut him off in a previous life. Maybe his GF ran off with some guy on a duc once. Maybe he was dropped too many times as a child. Whatever the cause, his inner ass-hat took over, decided he had to prove his worth to you.

He can prove his worth by keeping up and taking a ramp fast and I'd have no problem with it. I might even play along. But being a couple feet off the rear tire is just stuuupid.