I almost got to see somebody own himself

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Out and about today, I was driving down the I when everybody started hitting their brakes.

A smallish SUV comes barreling through behind me in the other lane. The driver hits the brakes hard coming up on the pack of cars. He's lucky the road wasn't slippery and ice-covered, as roads tend to get around here this time of year.

A bit further down the road, we pass the reason everybody was slowing down; a police officer having pulled somebody over at the side of the road. As the SUV passes the cop car, it darts over in front of the car in front of me without signalling. No response from the officer. Drat. I was looking forward to some tasty pwnage.

Continuing down the road, the SUV continued to bob and weave through traffic.

[blas]

I can't stand when traffic comes to a standstill because of someone getting pulled over, especially on the highways where there's plenty of room.

Many times, when I lived alone and had to drive on the highway for 15 miles to work, traffic would seemingly come to a logjam, and I'd wonder "wtf", and as we finally all started getting going again, all you saw was a person getting pulled over for having a light out. Seriously.

[PepperElf]

where i am we don't usually slow down for someone being pulled over - but we do pull to the far lane to give the cops plenty of room.

although... that can slow traffic down if both lanes are in use.

[wolfie]

Virtually everywhere in North America has the "slow down or (if safe to do so) move over for emergency vehicles on the shoulder" law. I LOVE it (sarcasm, obviously) when I take the left lane to get around an emergency vehicle on the shoulder, but once I'm past I can't get back into the right lane because some moron is passing me on the right (i.e. he didn't either slow down or move over).

[PepperElf]

it happens sometimes. it's not always the fault of the driver in the right though.

i've seen cases where the driver just couldn't pull to the left cos no one would let them in. although if they kept going full speed... yeah that would be shitty on their part.

[wolfie]

ii've seen cases where the driver just couldn't pull to the left cos no one would let them in. although if they kept going full speed... yeah that would be shitty on their part.

That's exactly what they did. Before I moved over, they were a couple hundred feet behind me. When I got past the "bear and customer", they were in the process of passing me. My moving to the left lane satisfied the "move over OR slow down" requirement, so I was at my regular cruising speed. The fact that they had gained on me showed that they hadn't slowed down.

[EricKei]

One of the guys who does traffic reports on the radio likes to comment on rubbernecking -- "There's all sorts of people slowing down to look at the guy who got pulled over near exit X...Apparently, nobody's ever seen someone get pulled over before!"

[PepperElf]

ah yeah now that's fucked up.

they're lucky they didn't hurt anyone - or get ticketed for what they did too.

[Caractacus_Potts]

As the SUV passes the cop car, it darts over in front of the car in front of me without signalling. No response from the officer. Drat.

Getting on the highway on ramp a few months ago a guy drove right through a yield sign without slowing and managed to screech to a stop a few inches from the side of my car (then forced his way between me and the car behind me even though the car behind me had the right of way).

Thing is a state trooper was off the side of the on ramp having just finished writing someone a ticket and she saw the entire incident. When I get on the highway first the jackass blows by me and then the state trooper speeds by with light and sirens then a few minute later I see jackass being ticketed for failure to yield and speeding at least.