u/Labbi85

What is it with people thinking that turning on their turn lights gives them any right to just merge into my lane and somehow I need to make room for them!? Blinkers are just there to show your intentions and not a free pass to do what ever you want.

Yesterday we came home from a long camping weekend. I drive a really slow and heavy Tacoma which we only use for camping (the truck is completely build up for off-roading and camping which we did in the past a lot before we had kids and which we want to get back to once the little ones are older)
So this means I usually drive more laid back and look more ahead of traffic to avoid abrupt braking and acceleration.
So yesterday I slowly creeped up on a newer Minivan which was slowly following a semi with big distance, by the way he drove it didn’t look like he’s doing any attempt to pass anyone anytime soon. I decide to pass him because I am faster than him, but had to wait a little for the car on my left to pass me and to get a gap for me to get into.
I merged into the passing lane and kept an ok (not 100% safe but far enough) distance to the guy in the front.
Suddenly the semi far in the front merged into the passing lane, which he could safely do, but this made the car on the right now suddenly nervous that he might be stuck behind the semi which gets passed like at least a football field ahead of him.
He turns on his blinkers ( sorry I am not braking for you just because you turn on your blinkers and you have other options), when and immediately tries to go into the little gap between me and the guy in front, no waiting for me to pass, no acceleration to get ahead of us, just forcing his way in. I needed to swerve on the median and brake to avoid a collision.
Later he had the audacity to flip me off.

At the end I maybe should have just not moved and let him crash into me, I would have gotten some scratches on the rockslides and he ended up with bend body panels and big repair bills.

Edit:

1. I was driving a constant speed. No speeding up or intentional blocking
2. I was almost next to him when he turned on the blinker. Was not expecting him that he wanted to get infront of me therefore I didn’t brake.
3. He actively started merging when I was already 1/3 car length next to him and he would have crashed into my side. I needed to sway into the median to avoid a collision.
4. He didn’t had immediate traffic in front of him and could have waited another 45sec before to merge before running out of room.
5. The one changing lanes needs to make sure it can be done safely without impeding others.