[Noah930]

There are a lot of a-hole drivers out there, I noticed today. Grand prize went to a dude who tried to race me on the highway. Only I didn't realize we were racing.

He was in some late-model Jaguar XJ sedan with some sort of Russian sticker on the back. (Maxim?) He had come zipping along in the fast lane while I had been trundling along in one of the slow lanes (I wasn't in any hurry, and I was thinking ahead of the offramp I had to take from one highway to another). On the two-lane wide transition road I admit I came flying up on him...but in the other lane. I didn't do it to catch him, but rather because it's fun to go fast around corners in a 911. I slowed as there was traffic in front of me in my lane. I didn't crowd anyone.

As the transition road narrowed down to one lane, I dropped back a bit to let the Jag have space to merge. He was tailgating the car in front of him. Again, let him go first; I was in no rush.

So as our line of about 5 or 6 cars merged onto the next highway, there happened to be a line of cars in the "slow lane" preventing immediate merging. This merging area (two parallel lanes) goes on for at least 1/2 a mile, so there's no immediate rush to merge onto the highway proper. I was the last car in line, so as timing went, I let the line of cars in the (#4) slow lane slip by and merged onto the highway. A-hole Jag pilot just couldn't stand it that I might get in front of him (apparently), and instead of waiting for traffic to pass by to allow him to merge, he forced his way into the 1/2 car space between two others on the highway. As in: he only had 1/2 a car length on the guy next to him. Poor red car had to swerve half-way into the next lane to avoid the accident, leaning on his horn the entire time. Jag didn't care or back off. I mean, the cars were door handle to door handle for a good 50 yards.

After that banzai move, he did a similar thing for his next lane change, whipping his car into a spot in traffic 2 feet longer than his car. And then he swerved into the next faster (#2) lane over, which was free of traffic. As soon as he "broke free" into the traffic-free #2 lane, a couple car lengths in front of me (I had just gradually mosied on over three open lanes into the #1 lane while he was divebombing through the slow lanes), he finally drove normally. Only to then skitter across two lanes to exit the highway shortly later.

WTF? I always hear of stories how guys claim everyone wants to race them in their Porsches. In my 7 years of ownership, that's happened to me maybe once. A 25 year-old Porsche doesn't merit a 2nd glance in L.A. Does s h i t like this really happen?