The Awful Tailgater

             By Florida Bill  

                                       There is one driver who I believe stands out in infamy among others.  Most of the time, but not always, it is the young guns at the wheel. Males usually, but not always. Anyone can qualify.  I am speaking of the tailgater, the one who insists on following too closely.  When one is hanging on my bumper,  I look for a way to disappear; or as the late Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote in reference to the inherent danger of nasty 
motorists---"I flee." 
                            Yes, tailgating is a major safety issue, but it is much more.  It is a social problem which can transform otherwise congenial motorists into raging lions.  In my mind, it is Florida and Chicago which are tailgating capitals. 
                       In Florida, my wife and I live in a residential neighborhood.  A few blocks away is a two-lane through street named Holmberg.  Sometimes  Holmberg can be busy with school buses and landscaping service trucks.  At other times, traffic can be fairly light.   The speed limit on Holmberg is 30 miles per hour, and for a stretch, 35 miles per hour.  Of course, on intersecting residential streets, it is less. 
                          It seems like there is always a tailgater who is displeased with the 30 mile an hour limit, or more likely, is not aware of the speed limit.  Thirty, for a wheel man, is too pokey.   And when he is in your rear and there is light traffic, the tailgater is annoyed that he is being forced to drive so slowly.  He hangs only feet behind your rear bumper and when you look into your mirror, you can often see him, or her, shaking their head in obvious exasperation at having to crawl along. He or she wants to move. 
                         On occasion, the tailgater will honk when he is right on your bumper, and when you refuse to speed up and risk one of the many speeding tickets we see handed out on this street, his annoyance becomes uncontrollable, and he puts pedal to the metal and zooms around.  In passing, speeds may hit 50 or 60 mph, so eager is the tailgater to get by the infuriating snail.  
                           There are those times when the tailgater has hung behind because of traffic in the other direction but the slow pace is eating away at him. Swinging around to pass, he rolls down the passenger side window and flashes the middle finger and screams, "you a--hole." To some that is an invitation for further combat, but not for your scrivener.  I do not challenge the mad motorist, I drop way back, maybe even turn onto an intersecting side street, giving the angry tailgater time to be on his way and not think about getting even with the source of his irritation. 
                           We have all read about "road rage."  People have been shot or otherwise injured in fights which have emanated from angry drivers whose rage overwhelms them and causes them to seek further confrontation with his imagined adversary. It can end with one of the drivers, or maybe both,  wanting a piece of the other.  In cases which we have read about in newspapers and heard about on the tube,  the confrontation has ended with a shooting or a beating, maybe even with a death.  I want no part of angry motorists.            
                           Pine Tree estates is a  section in the South Florida community of Parkland.  It is abutted pretty much by Coral Springs, Coconut Creek and west Boca Raton.  Police from the Broward county sheriff's office patrol Holmberg which runs east and west for about four miles with two roundabouts and one stoplight.  The slow pace is absolutely anathema to the tailgater who insists on motoring at higher speeds, but still sees Holmberg as a shortcut between State Road 7 and University on the west. 
                            In the motor vehicle codes for most states, including Florida, tailgating is a violation punishable by a fine. Where there is an accident, the violation becomes one of following too closely, also punishable by a fine.   Basically, the law provides that a driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of such vehicle and the traffic and condition of the roadway. Unfortunately, it is probably rare for an officer to  ticket a driver for the infraction where there is no accident.
                            Every several years our insurance carrier invites its senior customers to attend a traffic school for a half-day, and earn a lower rate.  Naturally, the offer is accepted.  I remember that at our class, the instructor, a man in his 60s or 70s named Clyde,  reviewed the rules of traffic, and stressed the problems of tailgating which can lead to accidents with injuries, even death. Always maintain your interval, he said firmly.  One of his rules of thumb which I remember was that for every 10 mph of speed, the following distance should be one car length.  At 20 mph, it would be two car lengths and at 60 mph, six car lengths. 
                          Clearly, this is not going to happen, with agitated drivers darting in to fill up the empty "intervals" between cars as they hopscotch their way to the front of the traffic line. 
                          It is sometimes satisfying to pull up to a stoplight and discover that the lane-changing tailgaters who left you in the dust have not really gained anything, and are only a car or two ahead of you, pulled up short by the same traffic signal.  You must, however, resist the urge to mock them, as they are probably already seething at the delay.