So this has been annoying me lately; drivers leaving excessive spacing when stopped for a red light. I get it, you don’t want to be right on the next guys bumper, you should leave space to escape if the guy in front stalls or somebody tries to carjack you. But 2-3 car lengths? It really bugs me when they do it in a left turn lane causing a back up to the travel lane resulting in overall congestion. Or, if they’re first at the light, they don’t pull up far enough to reach the road sensors that trigger a light change. I haven’t been able to isolate to a specific demographic, seems to be young, old, black, white, you name it. Maybe they’re just stoned at the wheel. I’m tempted to roll down my window and ask ‘wtf’? I’m in the Northeast US. Has anybody else witnessed this?
This reminds me of one time I witnessed instant karma. I was driving behind someone doing this in crawling-slow heavy traffic, and got to one of those large intersections with such lanes. Here in Australia they’re right turn lanes, though that’s irrelevant for the story I wanted to share.
So right in front of me there was this car with at least four guys in it, loud music, and an imbecile on the wheel. I got stuck behind him on a single lane road with no means to overtake. He was driving somewhat below the speed limit for no apparent reason and leaving a massive gap before the next car in front. He still left a large gap when we both merged on a crowded multi lane road, and he kept that 3 car spaced gap at every red light stop. He would lag several seconds before starting to move, obviously not paying attention. I honked a couple times to nudge him.
One of those irritating assholes I guess.
Now, somewhere behind me on the lane to the left there was some other guy with a red convertible and an attitude that screamed “YES I’M OVERCOMPENSATING”.
We got to the intersection where the turn only lanes appeared, and the idiot in front of me was once again holding traffic as he lagged to resume driving. But the lane on my left, which continued straight, moved just enough to let the red convertible guy right beside the idiot. And then all of a sudden the convertible revved and zoomed right in front and across the idiot, cutting him off and overtaking him on the turn only lane, sliding right in that annoying massive gap he was leaving.
That was the only time in my life I celebrated such a douchebag move. The slow idiot went insane. Started yelling at the convertible, gave him the finger. The convertible was the last car able to turn on that change of lights so the idiot and everyone behind had to wait yet again for green, but I wasn’t mad. Watching the car in front of me shake with rage until the lights changed again made up for it. He didn’t lag once they went green again.