Road rage hijinx

A Boing Boing reader says: "A SUV is getting blocked by two cars on purpose and almost gets hit by oncoming traffic so the SUV driver decides to take revenge on those two cars.
Harmless fun with 5,000 pounds of fast-moving metal

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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SomeGuyNamedMark

At the end the other car’s driver chased the SUV to give him a big hug.
http://hame.ca/one/ Hamish Grant

dude’s an asshole but this is actually pretty funny
aeroplane

This is the truncated version of the video… in the original (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtCu34Tq94I&feature=youtu.be&rel=0) it’s much more clear that the SUV driver was A) trying to pass in a non-passing area and B) driving extremely aggressively.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  I was going to say, the SUV looks like one of those a-holes who doesn’t merge properly (and early) and then passes everybody and expects to be let in at the last minute. In Chicago they do a similar thing where they drive in the parking lane at stop lights and try to cut back in front of everybody.
  - joeposts
    
    I just park my bicyle in front of those cars, then slip on the pedals when the light changes so they are stuck while sane drivers scoot along. The rage on their faces is worth the occasional collision, and the insurance money isn’t great, but hey, it’s a living.
    - morcheeba
      
      You are doing fsm’s work. May the sauce be with you.
  - ComradeQuestions
    
    I was thinking it was like those people too. I don’t have much of a problem with that behavior when it comes to merge lanes and other drivers are leaving too much space in front of them already — that’s just inefficient and making traffic worse. But when you’re passing in parts of the road that clearly aren’t meant for driving in the first place, you’re going to a special circle of hell.
  - Gtmac
    
    Unless traffic is moving at high speeds, merging early is not merging properly. It’s the early mergers that end up slowing down traffic for everyone. A proper zipper merge means filling up the merging lane and merging at the point of the lane end.
    - teapot
      
      Thankyou! This is precisely the right way to use merge lanes and I am tired of hearing people complain that this use type is inappropriate. There is a difference between jumping your place in a merge and using all the road as is intended.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Very common here in the land of long straight roads and centenarian drivers. People merge a quarter mile or more before they have to, in traffic that’s only going 35 mph.
    - Andrew Pautz
      
      Gtmac is right… at least according to MNDoT. Further, I’d guess that what CQ believes is “too much space” is probably closer to an appropriate amount. Too little spacing exacerbates an accordion-like effect that travels through the line of cars like a shockwave, creating and augmenting traffic slowdowns and stoppages: http://www.mobilemag.com/2012/04/30/honda-tech-prevents-accordion-effect-traffic-jams/
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Uh, no. I’m talking about people who use the opportunity to be weasels and speed past everybody else and then try to force their way in at the last possible moment.
    - Eric Hunt
      
      Many places in America have a deeply ingrained culture of “be polite. wait your turn.”
      
      This is even more powerful than the desire to have speedy, free-flowing traffic.
      - http://twitter.com/Fongoloid64 Chris
        
        Other places in America have the “Me, me, me, I am late, get out of my way, this is my road” attitude. Try driving in Southern California.
hassenpfeffer

That’s about as funny as sticking a rattlesnake fang into someone’s dry socket.
Ramone

He makes quite the splash in the shallow end of the gene pool.
Charlie Hayes

The windows are clearly not down like the annotation would suggest. The original video is *MUCH* better.
http://twitter.com/bbum Bill Bumgarner

Oh, Russia. Source of never-ending videos of drivers being jackasses.

Turns out that insurance fraud is so epically huge in Russia that dash cams have now become extremely commonplace to prevent fraud.

Combine that with a country whose driving habits are a bit more Darwinian than most countries and you have a non-stop stream of epic fun times (not!) on the roads there.

Yet another country where “hire a professional driver” is on the list of expenses for my ever visiting the place.
- Boundegar
  
  I was wondering where this was from. I thought harmless fun meant handguns, because I am American, so the splash was a surprise. Also, the pop music on the radio definitely doesn’t sound American.
- Cory Trevor
  
  Oh shit, Russia? I didn’t look at the tags and just assumed Florida or New Jersey…
Gerald Mander

After seeing the full vid, the SUV driver is far and away the asshole here. Quelle surprise.
chgoliz

That’ll end well.
Daneel

Big car, tiny penis.
- KBert
  
  Ḏḯ¢к➸ℌ℮αḓ
  Not you, Daneel.
http://twitter.com/bazimmerman Brad Zimmerman

To misquote Walter from the Big Lebowski: fuckin’ Russians, nothin’ ever changes.
Greg Seamon

The Suv dork should wait his turn like everyone else. What makes him more important than everyone else that has to wait in trafic.
http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

Over the years I’ve come to believe that cars cause people to behave in a sociopathic manner. SUVs, trebly so.
- decoy131
  
  I had that ingrained into me early in my childhood.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZAZ_xu0DCg
  - http://www.ecoevolution.org/ Ian G
    
    The full movie is great, the bit illustrating how reaction time relates to following distance is especially good. Better than any driving manual.
  - http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
    
    I want me one of them fancy hats.
- Mike Polding
  
  that would be the false sense of annonimity the car gives you, lowering inhibitions, making people act out in the worst, most childish manner…same thing with trolls
http://profile.yahoo.com/NF2SRG3XI4PYMLJCHXQICPS32Y LS

Some things never change.
http://youtu.be/QUm6GfUzVZU
http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

No way this could go wrong!
skeptacally

Yet another reason why I regularly fear for my life while cycling.
alex

Would have been funnier if the SUV had flipped at the end.
Adge Cutler

So which one was Steve Wozniak in? ;-)
jeligula

This wasn’t what happened. The two lane turned into a one lane with plenty of warning. The SUV stayed in the lane that was ending and passed all of the other cars so he could cut into the front, just as any entitled a-hole tends to do. The guy in the car ahead of him saw what he was doing and decided not to reward this guy’s boorish behavior and then he displayed even more boorishness. This is known as vehicular assault.
- TWX
  
  Things like this are why I miss the beat up ’79 Chrysler Cordoba that I used to own. The only truly straight sheet metal on the car was the roof. Fenders, doors, quarter panels, even dings on the hood and the trunk lid. But, both nearly foot-tall chrome bumpers were absolutely perfect, as was the fiberglass header panel nearly eight inches behind the front bumper. The car was battle-scarred and looked it, all before we bought it originally as a parts car.
  
  No one EVER screwed with me while I drove it.
  - mister stick
    
    hey, you know aliens won’t steal your brain if you wear a tinfoil hat
donovan acree

Allot of people are saying the SUV driver is completely at fault. I don’t know the rules of the road where this was filmed, so there is that to consider. I wonder if anyone who said the SUV was in the wrong knows them?
In any case, the SUV driver was prevented from merging by the coupe. He was almost hit by oncomming traffic because the coupe driver refused to let him merge.
Are the SUV haters here suggesting that it’s OK to put peoples lives at risk rather than press the break peddle for a second or two? Or, is it up to the coupe driver to teach the SUV driver a lesson (that may end in death) about the proper way to merge?
In most places, I believe the coupe driver would be found at fault (right up until the SUV driver decided to teach his own pointless lesson)
- chgoliz
  
  Read jeligula’s response above and watch the full clip linked in aeroplane’s post.
  
  Everyone was merging properly until the SUV, which tried to bully its way in at the last possible second (solid white line, already).
  - donovan acree
    
    Right. I get that. But, does his stupidity justify not allowing him in? Is it worth letting someone get killed to teach them a lesson?
    - chgoliz
      
      Ah, yes, I see now.
      
      Now, I would let the jerk go. 20 years ago? I would have held my ground. Maturity is a good thing.
angryhippo

The most egregious examples are people who use right or left-turn lanes at intersections in order to jump ahead. A-holes, every one of them.