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Video of Mr Asshole trucker from this morning... it should be up in a few minutes of posting this. Ya'll watch it and decide if I was the asshole in the situation, or if Mr Trucker was. I've also included the email I sent to his dispatch (I called when I got to my destination). I also linked them to the MP4 version of the video. This, this right here, is why I have dash cams now. Too many chances of shit going down and this kind of crap needs to stop. It's a youtube vid, but I never manage to embed those properly in vBulletin.
Video
My take on this is as follows. Keep in mind the camera has a wide field of vision, supposed to be 140 degrees beyond normal, and as such things tend to look farther away then they actually are.
If you notice in the beginning of the video, you can see the driver and rig in the top right following too closely behind a pickup truck that sits in the lane directly to my left (there's 4 lanes total on the beltline around Raleigh, NC at that point). It should also be noted that the Beltline is only 4 lanes for a few miles. It narrows down to 3 lanes right before the Gorman Street exit. The driver shifts over a lane when it becomes apparent that the tuck will not move out of the way in the, putting it into my lane of travel.
At this point the driver of the rig is now behind the SUV that is behind me. I've had to slow down as the car in front of me has slowed from 65 MPH (which is where I stick my cruise at) down to around 60 MPH, but with fluctuations both over and under 60. Both the rig and SUV behind me get closer as a result.
As the UPS truck clears the right most lane, the rig driver decided to use this as an opportunity to pass traffic on the right. The only problem with this is that the right lane coming out of South Saunder's street is heavily trafficked with merging cars. And clearly, the driver of the rig learns this as well. Though there's no real need to merge into my lane of travel to clear traffic the rig driver decided to cut into the lane I was in. There was NOT enough clearance to safely do so as I had to move left and apply the brakes in order to not collide with the year of the trailer. I laid on my horn when the driver did this for several seconds. And seeing how the window of his rig was down at the time, he must of heard me.
At this point the driver of the rig was in front of me and I was willing to let it slide. For some reason the rig driver moved into the rightmost lane and started to slow down. I sped up to avoid further conflict (and knowing that lane was going to end, wanted to be out of the way). I set my cruise for 65 MPH once past the rig and settled back into my drive.
At this point I noticed that the rig driver was once again trying to pass on the right. I do not understand why it was that important to pass my vehicle instead of putting on a signal and trying to merge in behind me. If I were a cynical bastard, I would bet that this was done on purpose to lead to a confrontation. But I'm willing to give the benefit of doubt that the driver was unaware of the merge coming ahead. So instead of trying to merge behind me, the driver forced me to straddle the the next lane and brake heavily to avoid once again being hit. The left lane, as you can see, was NOT devoid of traffic and I almost collided with the car passing on my left. I could not just move over at that point to give this rig driver room. And further there was not enough clearance between the car in front of me and the rig to have tried merging ahead of my car.
It's at this point that I pulled up my phone and dialed 911 asking for the non-emergency contact. I was following the rig at this point to ensure that if the behavior continued down the road that police could be talked through his location. You'll notice in the video that I never followed too closely to his rig, merely followed to see what his next move would be. At this point he pulled over completely off the road rather abruptly and flipped me off as I went past. I set my cruise back to 65 MPH and had an uneventful remainder of my trip.
A rig is not a car and cannot expect to flow through traffic like one. And it's not like this is a short haul cab. By that I mean that long haul rigs are out on the highway for 10 hours a day, and moves like this are just unconscionable. I cannot fathom why a professional driver would act like this. I've been driving this same stretch of road since 2006, and this marks one of only a handful of times that I've seen a rig driver this aggressive.
Video
My take on this is as follows. Keep in mind the camera has a wide field of vision, supposed to be 140 degrees beyond normal, and as such things tend to look farther away then they actually are.
If you notice in the beginning of the video, you can see the driver and rig in the top right following too closely behind a pickup truck that sits in the lane directly to my left (there's 4 lanes total on the beltline around Raleigh, NC at that point). It should also be noted that the Beltline is only 4 lanes for a few miles. It narrows down to 3 lanes right before the Gorman Street exit. The driver shifts over a lane when it becomes apparent that the tuck will not move out of the way in the, putting it into my lane of travel.
At this point the driver of the rig is now behind the SUV that is behind me. I've had to slow down as the car in front of me has slowed from 65 MPH (which is where I stick my cruise at) down to around 60 MPH, but with fluctuations both over and under 60. Both the rig and SUV behind me get closer as a result.
As the UPS truck clears the right most lane, the rig driver decided to use this as an opportunity to pass traffic on the right. The only problem with this is that the right lane coming out of South Saunder's street is heavily trafficked with merging cars. And clearly, the driver of the rig learns this as well. Though there's no real need to merge into my lane of travel to clear traffic the rig driver decided to cut into the lane I was in. There was NOT enough clearance to safely do so as I had to move left and apply the brakes in order to not collide with the year of the trailer. I laid on my horn when the driver did this for several seconds. And seeing how the window of his rig was down at the time, he must of heard me.
At this point the driver of the rig was in front of me and I was willing to let it slide. For some reason the rig driver moved into the rightmost lane and started to slow down. I sped up to avoid further conflict (and knowing that lane was going to end, wanted to be out of the way). I set my cruise for 65 MPH once past the rig and settled back into my drive.
At this point I noticed that the rig driver was once again trying to pass on the right. I do not understand why it was that important to pass my vehicle instead of putting on a signal and trying to merge in behind me. If I were a cynical bastard, I would bet that this was done on purpose to lead to a confrontation. But I'm willing to give the benefit of doubt that the driver was unaware of the merge coming ahead. So instead of trying to merge behind me, the driver forced me to straddle the the next lane and brake heavily to avoid once again being hit. The left lane, as you can see, was NOT devoid of traffic and I almost collided with the car passing on my left. I could not just move over at that point to give this rig driver room. And further there was not enough clearance between the car in front of me and the rig to have tried merging ahead of my car.
It's at this point that I pulled up my phone and dialed 911 asking for the non-emergency contact. I was following the rig at this point to ensure that if the behavior continued down the road that police could be talked through his location. You'll notice in the video that I never followed too closely to his rig, merely followed to see what his next move would be. At this point he pulled over completely off the road rather abruptly and flipped me off as I went past. I set my cruise back to 65 MPH and had an uneventful remainder of my trip.
A rig is not a car and cannot expect to flow through traffic like one. And it's not like this is a short haul cab. By that I mean that long haul rigs are out on the highway for 10 hours a day, and moves like this are just unconscionable. I cannot fathom why a professional driver would act like this. I've been driving this same stretch of road since 2006, and this marks one of only a handful of times that I've seen a rig driver this aggressive.
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