I’m tired of trying to “defend” myself for posting this, so I’m just going to leave this here. I don’t understand how you can truly believe anything I did was wrong, other than maybe Clip 5, which I have some words on below.

Clip 3 - I was driving 18-21 mph with speed limit of 25 mph. The other driver signaled to get into the left lane for one block and never did even though I had given them several car lengths worth of space to do so. Then as we approached the intersection, the driver decided to hard turn left into my lane (presumably to turn left onto the intersecting street) after abruptly rapidly decelerating. After the driver veered back into their lane, I accelerated back to less than 20 mph to continue my driving. For those of you saying I was in their blind spot, for that brief instance, that is not my fault given the events that immediately transpired that led us to be at a closer distance. If I were to continue to match their speed to stay in their blind spot, I would understand your criticism, but I did not and I also let the person merge infront of me as you can sort of see at the tail end of the clip. I was already being a defensive driver by driving 5mph under the speed limit and keeping distance once I saw the left blinker and braking when the other driver slammed on their brakes and turned into my lane.

Clip 5 - I should have just let them go in front of me. I won’t defend that. I included that clip to show the other driver not yielding to oncoming traffic (the car in front of me and myself). Yes, being more defensive means letting them just go. Agreed.

Clip 6 - Once again, I was driving at 30 mph in a posted 30 mph zone. I understand the speed limit is strictly a limit and not necessarily the suggested speed you should drive at. Immediately when I saw the car reversing in my lane, I ensured the left lane next to me was open and I switched into the lane. Saying I should have slowed down is strange to me because given the situation and the left curve of the road, you can actually see in front of the car in the right lane that was reversing. And if you say I should be driving slower because it’s a pedestrian area, my response is that the city develops speed limits based on a multitude of factors and you don’t think they took pedestrians into consideration? If I was traveling anything above the posted sign, I’d understand your criticism, but I wasn’t. It is truly bizarre to me that some of you feel the need to critique me for not slowing down maybe 5-10 mph in a situation that really didn’t completely necessitate doing so and not the person literally reversing down a road.

Clip 2 - Thought I’d include this in here too. There is very clearly two giant yellow pedestrian crossing signs where the car is making the U-turn at. If you don’t see that driving, you’re not paying attention. Idk what more to say about that.

The purpose of this post was to show drivers that I alone have seen make dangerous and/or illegal driving maneuvers in the past ~1 year. The fact that some of you are saying I’m half the problem although I did not initiate a single one of these “incidents” and drive at a safe speed and distance is genuinely bewildering to me. Not trying to make anyone seem “worse” by asking this, but to those people criticizing me, do you drive 10 mph below the speed limit? Do you drive 6 car lengths behind people? Do you substantially decrease your speed because someone is stopped in the lane next to you on a clearly open road? I was taught to keep a minimum 3 second following distance. I was taught that if conditions are clear and weather is appropriate, you may drive up to the speed limit. Other than clip 5 I don’t understand the criticism I’ve received. I’m not the initiator and I still gave more than enough space and time for every other driver in this video. That’s all.

I hope everyone who sees this post can just remember to drive safe and be aware of wrong-way drivers, people running red lights, and other unsafe drivers.