My Viewer Tried To Fool Me, He's Deluded!

As normal, there is an important message in these "deluded" videos. Would like to say a big thanks to my viewer for having the courage to send in his clip, and I hope something has been learned.

This is what he wrote in his original email

Hi Ashley,

I’ve been debating whether to send this in for a little while now, as I know I don’t fully cover myself in glory at the start of the video.

Along the route highlighted below, I was tailgated extremely closely by an impatient van driver. I accelerated up to 75MPH (In a 60 limit) to try and increase the gap as I felt somewhat intimidated, to which the van behind me also did keeping the gap closed. Looking back at this, I could and should have moved over to let the van through (You will see this in the clip) . This would have probably stopped all of this from happening. At the time I knew I was going quickly, but as I was focused on the van behind, I lost track of my speed. You can see as I overtake the final van, I begin to slow down as I was going too fast for the road.

Once the van overtakes, I put my hand up as if to say “What are you doing?” I promise it was nothing more than this. I believe the passenger took a disliking to this, which you can see when the van pulls in front and starts to break a couple of times.

Now I know that they may have been trying to get under the speed limit, but I have a feeling they were trying to scare me / slow me down to confront me (this was confirmed later in the video).

This spooked me. I have a high performance car (Hyundai i30n in blue, so it sticks out) that is very distinctive and did not want any harm to come to me or it, so I floored it. I’m not proud of the speed I did to get by, but at the time I felt that there was the potential for this to get nasty and was my way of attempting to de-escalate the situation. As I drive past the van, I roll my windows up, as I just didn’t want to get involved (you will hear I say very little in the video and don’t make any gestures to the driver as they follow me).

The van catches up to me and drives extremely closely and dangerously for about 3 minutes until we hit a set of red lights, where the driver gets out of the vehicle to confront me. Luckily my car automatically locks the doors, so the door didn’t open when he tried the handle (At the timestamp (13:46:48) on the video, a small thump can be heard. This is the snapback of my door handle after the Iveco driver had tried to gain access to my car. Luckily, the doors were locked, and the windows were up)

I know what I could have done better, but this situation did scare me a little, although I did have to smile when the driver tried my door and failed)

In addition, I did speak to the Police about this. They said they found no evidence of dangerous driving or that the driver behind seemed aggressive in any way – which I found a little strange

Anyway, hope this video gives you a lot to chew over. Let me know what you think of it and how I acted

Regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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[jadens]

The deluded viewer clips are starting to become my favourite. 🤣

[CptCactus---]

Dashcams are a much-needed piece of equipment nowadays. But people forget that they are also recording everything you do too!

[GoodFooteFirst]

Inflated ego vs reckless operator. Toxic mix when those two types of drivers meet.
Appreciate your videos Ashley, have definitely checked my own bad driving habits since watching your content, cheers mate!

[kenbrown]

a guideline I learned long ago: if someone catches up to you, let them pass, and 90% of the time, you will never see them again.

[goodguykonrad]

"Ah yes, I'll just suddenly crop the footage to hide my speed: that won't look suspicious at all"

[Thorin]

When someone tailgates me or if I see someone in the mirror coming up really quickly, my first instinct is "how do I get rid of them?" (safely of course). They want to get past me, I want to reduce risk. If they want to drive dangerously I'd much rather they do it away from me.

Honestly, I had to take some of the ego out of my driving before I arrived at this attitude but it saves me from so much unnecessary stress.

[soledweller]

Having found myself housebound due to an accident and broken leg, iv took the opportunity to catch upon your clips, Iv driven heavy goods for over 25 years and can honestly say your clips/ videos still give me good pointers and advice, so much so that my nephew is currently learning to drive and iv given your page details to him to follow. Just thought I’d say mate. ( as iv loads of time on my hands 😉) and I wish all drivers had your attitude.

[pauluk]

The irony is that both of these drivers would act in exactly the same way if the roles were reversed.

[middler]

The age old story. Let the lunatics drive off into the sunset rather than have them creeping behind you.

[CycolacFan]

Jeremy Vine would be proud of this level of antagonism.

[carusmike]

A lot of your subscribers, me included, used to be like this. Mistaking insecurity for ego. Now replaced confrontation with confidence. And willing to lose silly battles whilst getting on with happy contentment. Both attitudes are self fulfilling but with very different long term results. I see an idiot in an expensive car. I see a fool in a wreck. Maybe not today. But just like Russian

[justamanchimp]

Omg! I’m so glad you uploaded this, this is my number one hate on the roads. Imo, I don’t care if a car is breaking the speed limit or not, it is an overtaking lane so if there’s space to get back into lane and let faster cars past, just do it. Drop your ego, for all you know there could be a very legit reason someone is speeding, could even be an undercover police car, or an emergency, or worse, someone dangerous, you name it, people who think they have the right to block an overtaking lane like this are just pathetic children

[DashcamAdelaide]

1:25 No matter who did what, there was no need for the Van driver to brake check the cammer

[jontysquirrel]

The biggest impact since I have had a dashcam is the realisation that MY driving is not perfect. It is improving MY driving which is an unexpected bonus. 🙂

[robc]

Yep, give in and be the better driver. Always has a better result, and one thing amongst many this channel has taught me.

[MattinLondon]

I've observed over the last few years that whenever I'm tailgated, cutup, overtaken blindly, blocked lane change, stuck behind someone doing 25 and zigzagging in their lane (has to be mobile phone use), or even nearly mowed down when walking, they all have dashcams more often than not. Obviously this isn't a daily or even weekly occurrence, but you tend to remember scenarios when something out of the ordinary happens. Just staggers me why these types of drivers bother having dashcams, and truly scares me that they must think what they're doing is correct.

[ericritchie]

"I'm not excusing the less than ideal reaction of the viewer to the van drivers, however if they had done the correct things at the start the van driver behaviour would still be happening"

[killagearz]

Sometimes I get tempted to act like the Cam driver. Sometimes I do even retaliate for a brief moment, but then my Mrs usually says come on, what would Ashley think? 😁 to which I usually submit and then carry on with my day as normal. Hopefully overtime I will stop people like the van driver from bothering me so much.

[madmick]

I find this one quite funny really. Sure, The Iveco tailgating might have triggered me. Thing is though, I use my camera's for two reasons. 1. collect evidence if needed. 2. I too am on camera, so It reminds me to behave better and drive better as well. Along with Ashley's video's, both have improved my driving no end..

[bp]

Been there and done it in the past - but after growing up and with the roads becoming more dangerous and weapons being carried by other road users, you never know what you could be getting yourself into. You’re better off just letting it go because you aren’t going to change their road use attitude. Also, with the help of Ashley’s videos over the past few years and ADT on top, I have leaned to read the road so much better and it’s amazing how road psychic you become. This clip is just battle of the egos. 🙄