Weird.

I drive like a little old lady. At least, how I imagine little old ladies drive. I try to always drive the speed limit -- whatever it is -- and I'm always in the right-hand lane. When I see a yellow light, I usually stop rather than push it, etc.

When I started driving twenty years ago, I was reckless enough (and unlucky -- not all of the accidents were my fault) that my parents' auto insurance agency notified us that they would no longer allow me to drive any of the family cars. That was the last time I owned a car.

While I was with Russell, we would rent cars when we wanted to drive somewhere. I was a little more careful, but still likely to go past the speed limit. However, Russell is what I call "anxious"; he was always skittish with my driving.

One day, I got frustrated enough with his anxiety that I immediately slowed down to the speed limit, thinking that once he saw everybody else zipping past us that he would agree that I wasn't really going too fast. Instead, he was perfectly happy and I taught myself to be happy driving that way, too.

Now, I'm much more relaxed when I drive. Even motorways that have bad reputations for causing driver frustration don't faze me. Since I'm driving slower than anyone else on the road, I almost always have a clear lane in front of me. I simply set cruise control to the speed limit and putt-putt along.

As you would imagine, it's not uncommon for someone to speed up behind me, slow down quickly and tailgate me, hoping to intimidate me into driving faster rather than just going around me. I ignore them, for the most part.

However, I was out this past Saturday night in a rental car. I had dropped Russell and Paulie off in Baltimore after a concert in Annapolis and I was returning to Dakota in Silver Spring (he had an ear infection and couldn't go). The weather was bad -- lots of rain -- and it was nearing midnight.

For the first time, someone tailgated me for several minutes, flashing his headlights, trying to intimidate me. Folks might flash their highbeams if you're in the left lane, but this guy was turning his lights on and off in my eyes rather than simply going around me.

I eventually came upon someone who was going even slower than I was and changed lanes to go around them. My intimidator also changed lanes, but didn't get back into the right-hand lane as I did after I passed the other car.

I have no idea what motivated them to behave this way. I kept my cruise control at the speed limit and ignored them as best I could.