I think there is something to the low IQ thing!
I am in a location that gets infrequent snow, and we happened to get a good bit over the weekend. County offices closed, businesses closed, and schools are now going to be closed for the third day in a row.
Local Facebook and NextDoor groups are blowing up with people outraged at the decision to close schools tomorrow, even though most roads are perfectly fine. I've been driving around since Monday (I do have 4x4).
The outrage goes something like this:
"I can't believe they're closing schools again, the road in front of my house is totally clear! It's ridiculous! This is an outrage!"
Well ok, the roads in front of YOUR house may be clear, but when you get to the hilly and more rural areas of the county--where school buses still have to drive--those roads are very treacherous right now. A school bus drove off a hill and flip just a few years ago when it it hit a large patch of black ice going around a curve. This is not a theoretical issue.
There is just a really large contingent of people who just cannot think in "what ifs" or beyond their immediate "right now" situation. (And to be clear, if they were saying "the schools should have had alternative plans for dangerous school bus routes" I would agree! It's just the idiocy of "me me me, now now now" that is striking.)
I take pleasure from them merging into another lane and then coming back within thirty seconds because the grass wasn't greener on the other side of the fence after all.
A friend of mine with a low tolerance for bullshit once noticed another driver tailing him on the highway over several miles. My friend reacted by slamming on the brakes, and the other guy smashed into him. The guy's front bumper was ruined but my friend's truck had barely a scratch. You may call him reckless, foolish, impatient, road raged...I call him the hero we need but don't deserve.
I've got a good trick for tailgaters, pisses them off even more than having their car totalled.
Go the speed limit.
Not sure how it works in the States, but Canadian speeding tickets don't mean shit until you're doing at least 20km/h over the limit, hence 19km/h over the limit is the generally acceptable speed to go.
So, whenever I get someone up my ass, I just let off the gas til I'm going the actual speed limit. Either they pass (in which case I don't care about them anymore) or they have an aneurysm right then and there.
My friend and I used to cruise all around the city (decades ago when gas was cheap and joy riding was fun), him in his car me in mine. We'd usually drive tandem. But occasionally someone tailgate us. We basically worked out a system to alert the other driver and would switch to driving side by side and deliberately go slow to piss off the other driver. Even better, we alternate speeding up and slowing down. One would speed up just enough to lure the tailgater to switching lanes, them hoping they'd pass us. Then we'd switch to coasting, the other guy would speed up and do the same thing just to fuck with them. The poor dipshit would frantically change lanes left right left right desperately trying to pass us. We'd be on our cells fucking dying of laughter.
We have all fantasized about doing that, but your friend was properly equipped and had the will to live the dream. Tell him thank you for me.