I've always been mystified by people who get angry when I slow down in front of them to make a right turn.
And though it rarely happens, it happened to me yesterday. I was about two blocks from my home in fairly heavy traffic when I realized that I needed to get into the right lane so I could make my turn. I saw a two-car length opening in front of a red pickup on my right and sped up and eased in front of him.
Once I was ahead of him I activated my turn signal so he'd know I planned to turn at the next corner - which was still a block ahead.
When I arrived at my corner to turn I slowed and noticed that he was still behind me, rather going into the next where he had ample opportunity to pass. As I turned, he leaned on his horn and kept going. In turn, I reacted and tapped my horn a couple of times to acknowledge him.
A half block from the corner I pulled into my garage and sat there a moment gathering my things to go into the house. As I opened my car door I noticed the pickup that had been behind me when I turned sitting at the end of my driveway with its window upon. When they noticed me leaving the car, someone inside - either the driver or passenger hollered "f... you" in my direction. Then the vehicle sped away.
While I'm glad he was able to vent and drive away before the situation could escalate I wondered what was going in this person's life that he would take the time to follow someone over such a minor incident.
When I first got sober I used to get into a lot of problems in traffic. Then one day I was talking to my sponsor about it and he said something that I've never forgotten. And what he said is that he quit getting into problems in traffic when he realized that he could only drive one car at a time.
If I'd had the chance to talk to this guy who was so upset I probably would have shared that with him.
Not that he'd have listened.
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