Backroad Tailgaters

Specimen: People driving giant red trucks and silver SUVs.
Natural Habitat: Right behind you.
Scientific Name: Sequor Volo
Diet: Your exhaust fumes; quiet backroads.

Have you ever taken a pleasant drive through the backroads of your town, or any single-lane road surrounded by forests, farmland, or vast tracts of untouched land? Do you ever find yourself driving at the leisurely pace of the speed limit? Perhaps you're just taking an afternoon drive through the country. Maybe you're skiddish of speed traps that the police might have set up. Whatever your reason, few things are more frightening than looking into the rear view mirror and seeing a shiny red 4x4 barreling up behind you like a bat out of hell.

(Five of the drivers in the above picture are horrible people.)

Now, I normally don't have a problem with people who break the law by speeding on the highways. Most everybody does it, so why fight it? You're more likely to get pulled over for impeding the flow of traffic anyway. But beyond medical emergencies, there's absolutely no reason for anyone to speed on a road with only one lane in either direction. So when one of these speed demons pulls up behind me, you know what I do? I follow the speed limit exactly. They probably think I'm just a moron, but at least I'm making them obey the law. If they truly want to go faster than you, they'll do the Christian thing and go around.

These people seem to think that the same rules that apply on the highway also apply on the backroads of small-town America. They do not. There's a reason why more people die on the country roads than the highways and interstates. It's because toolbags driving top-heavy vehicles think they'll be just fine on those twists and turns at the 75 mph that they're used to on I-95. No dice. They flip and spin out faster than a cokehead driving bumper cars.

Good Ol' Boys who think they own the road, kids playing mailbox baseball, teenagers who just want to friggin' get there already, they're all guilty of tailgating us reasonable drivers who simply don't want to be hassled by some dirtbag who think the speed limit doesn't apply to them. They're also the worst people in the world.