For those who tailgate, I have been able to witness first hand the frustration in these peoples eyes. It seems that most people who are guilty of this bad driving habit are those who are trying to get home or get to wherever it is that they are going in a rush. It can also be due to the fact that the person doing the tailgating is somehow trying to secretly will the person in front of them to drive faster without actually touching or making contact with their back bumper. Needless to say, tailgating is a horrible driving habit to have, let alone develop. And don’t forget, tailgating is a driving infraction and can result in a traffic citation.
Picture this scenario, you are driving home from work and you simply feel the person in front of you isn’t driving fast enough. Add in a lot of heavy traffic in a small area. You keep zipping in and out of traffic in order to get around people who were driving too slow when you unknowingly cut off a police officer. Or better yet, you not only cut off a police officer, but cut off the police officer and then proceeded to tailgate the person in front of you. It’s a lose-lose situation that will most certainly result in a traffic citation for tailgating. Have you ever heard a story like this?
Other times, while we may not be the people doing the tailgating, we are often with those who are guilty of just that. Tailgating makes other passengers nervous. You may have friends or family with this same tendency. Are they really in that much of a rush? Or do they drive like this, out of habit? Often times these drivers don’t think they have a problem at all. Rather than their driving being the issue, they think it is the other drivers who have an issue with driving too slow or simply are bad drivers!
Again, while we can’t change other people’s driving bahaviors we can change our reaction to these situations. If someone is tailgating you, try to simply pull over and get out of their way. As mad or as frustrated as you may be, it’s not worth getting rear-ended over. And if you’re the one wiht the tendency to tailgate, think about it. Is it worth it? And are you REALLY going to get there any faster or are you simply endanger yours and others lives?