How Competing Actually Makes You LOSE Faster…

(Scene: Driving north on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami)

There was a car, maybe a Ford Taurus, tailgating me pretty tightly on the 2-lane road. I changed lanes to pass the slow-moving SUV in front of me.

The Taurus switched lanes too, and stayed tightly behind me: seemingly in a hurry, the Taurus driver probably judged me as the faster car and thus the best chance for them to get to their destination sooner.

I don’t like being tailgated. It’s a form of pressure a driver puts on other motorists to force them into speeding up or moving out of the tailgater’s way; automotive bullying.

I don’t see myself as the type of person a tailgater would do that to outside of a vehicle (since you usually can’t see who’s doing the driving when cars are right behind each other).

I’ve developed a subtle-but-effective way to deal with tailgaters that both gets them off my tail and serves my male ego: I take my foot off the gas and let my vehicle cruise.

Not touching the brake pedal at all, the lack of gas makes my car decelerate of course, but so slowly — and without the brake lights coming on — that a tailgater can’t even be mad about it. But the steadily-slowing pace usually entices the tailgater to get from behind me and switch lanes.