Tailgating Incident

I'm an assertive driver, I know. Most people seem to think I've got a warped sense of driving propriety, but you know what...I've never gotten in an accident due to me following my driving rules, as dangerous as they may seem to others. Well, one of these rules is that if you are on a single lane road during a busy time of traffic where someone in the front is going slow enough to force everyone behind to be tailgating one another, then that tailgating is not only acceptable but somewhat desired so as to show the offensively slow driver that they need to get out of the f'ing way. I mean, one car tailgating you might mean that person is just an asshole, but eight cars tailgating you means you're the odd man out.

Anyway, such was the case yesterday as I was driving home from a lesson. I was in the middle of one of these multi-car tailgates, with numerous drivers in front of and behind me. No big deal, right? I wasn't riding anyone's bumper, but I wasn't leaving a ton of room either. Well, once most of us turned onto a bigger road, I noticed this guy in a Jeep Cherokee trying to wave me down. I wasn't really sure what it was about, but sure enough, when we stopped at a red light, he stepped out of his car to get my attention, looking quite angry. I knew this probably wasn't good, but I couldn't imagine what I had done to the guy to deserve his anger, so I stepped halfway out of my door to see what was up.

Sure enough, the guy started going off on me for tailgating him, to which I must have responded with a really blank stare on my face, not even being aware of following anyone particularly closely. Upon seeing my surprised look, all he could come up with was something like: "Faggot-ass!" Then I sat back in my car, turned off the music, and contemplated what had just happened. The strangest thing about this whole thing was that the guy wasn't some conservative old person, but rather about my age. What's more, he was clearly into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (he had a big sticker to that effect on his car)...I mean, aren't the martial arts supposed to calm people down?

I honestly don't think I was riding him any closer than anyone else in that line was, but perhaps he was just in a really bad mood and wanted to hate on some gay people or something. Whatever...funny how much this story kinda resembles the Louis CK video I posted the other day...