I almost got run off the road today...

[DasLeben]

So I was coming back today from what every good college graduate does, which is applying for a waiter job at Applebee's. While I was driving back up the highway, I came up to a red light. The light was about to turn green, so I popped into the right lane, downshifted to second, and got ready to get ahead of the pack of cars all stacked up at the light in the left lane (strangest phenomenon ever).

At the front of the line of cars in the left lane was an older bodystyle Explorer. The light turned green while I was still at 15 or so mph, so I passed everyone expecting to get out front. Nope, this Explorer accelerated fast enough to catch up to me (my truck is slow as [censored]). Now, an intelligent person would pass here. Nope. The guy in the Explorer decides that he'd like to camp out right next to me while we're accelerating along.

Now here's the catch to all of this. Just past the stoplight about 500 feet, the right lane ends. So here I am, floored, trying to get away from this guy, and he's just hanging out on my left-rear quarter panel.

Needless to say, the right lane ends, and I'm stuck with nowhere to go. At this point, the Explorer has now moved up so that the other driver is even with me. I'm running very short of road, and the Explorer is already only 2-3 feet or so to my left. I look over and give him the "wtf?!" look, and he just smiles and nods.

At this point, I only have one move, which is to slam on the brakes and jump behind him. This isn't exactly safe either, since there's a car directly behind him. But, I didn't have much of a choice. The car behind the Explorer brakes for me, and I cut right behind the Explorer while laying on the horn.

His reaction? An innocent-like shoulder shrug and him pointing at himself (which I don't get). Whatever. I drop back to a good following distance for a couple miles. Nothing else happens here.

I did get him back though. As it turns out, we were both making a right turn onto another highway. We catch the green light onto the highway, and he jams into the corner, brakes reeeeal hard, and then crawls out of it. I downshift, trailbrake, rotate the back end out, and pass him on the left with about a 10-15mph overtake. He proceeds to flip me off and point at himself again(?). I give him the "finger twirl" sign in my rear window, and I go about my business as usual. Bwahaha.