Tailgating Is Only Appropriate When Beer Is Involved

I realize I just wrote a long rant about people who can't drive, but this next venting session is necessary for my sanity. The following is an incident worthy of no less than seven hisses.

So earlier this afternoon, I was driving in the rightmost lane of a 3 lane road, when I was forced to slow down as the person in front of me made a right turn. Another car caught up to me in the meantime, and I noticed that even after I sped back up to 45 mph (the speed limit was 40), he was still way too close. I don't mean he was 5 or so feet behind my car and it was mildly annoying; he was so far up my ass that I actually felt violated. I couldn't even see his headlights in my rear view mirror.

Not wanting to speed up and thus tail the car in front of me, I lightly tapped-- not slammed-- on my brakes to let this asshole know he was way too close. Normally when one does this, the tailgater backs off, having realized (oops!) he inadvertently failed to keep his distance, or that the vehicle in front of him does not plan to speed up despite his obnoxious road-nagging. I find the need to reiterate that I was in the RIGHTmost lane of the road-- not the left, which is the "fast" lane-- and that I was going a good 5mph above the speed limit.

In response to my brake-tapping, the guy on my tail immediately became enraged, sped up around my car, and cut me off, nearly taking out the front left corner of my car and causing me to seriously slam on the brakes. I gave a very angry honk, which did absolutely no justice whatsoever in expressing my anger about the highly dangerous and unnecessary situation in which this guy had placed me. This asshole was (shocker!) in an SUV, and I observed him as he left my vicinity, and proceeded to tail the poor person now in front of him. Despite the strong urge to get close enough to give him the finger or throw a nest of poisonous snakes into his vehicle, I decided it was best to keep my distance. I then watched (from afar) as Mr. SUV made a turn into a housing development by the name of-- get this-- Friendship Village.

The moment I wondered, "Where the hell are the cops when things like this happen?", I passed a coffee shop and saw two police cars in its parking lot. At least it wasn't Dunkin' Donuts.