When the grumpy guy on the corner lot yells at you for...

[milee]

People on foot are notoriously bad at estimating the speed of vehicles passing by.  Compound that with the idea that people believe they have the right to tell strangers what to do using the excuse that it's for safety and the public good, and you get people like your neighbor yelling at you even when you're not doing anything illegal.

A while ago I posted about an irate women following me into my driveway to yell at me for driving too fast in the neighborhood.  Since that time, I've figured out what part of the problem may have been.  My car is very well insulated and super quiet inside, plus there's a good chance that the stereo is on fairly loud, so I had no idea that my car was making a loud noise.  Just a few weeks ago, when I had the stereo off and the windows down, I was shocked at how loud the engine sounded (later found there was a small adjustment that needed to be made and was causing the racket).  I'm guessing that it wasn't necessarily that I was driving incredibly fast, it's that the loud noise my engine made created the impression that I was gunning the engine, so it sounded like I was accelerating through the neighborhood.

Anyway, drive reasonably and ignore any yelled comments.  Engaging won't help and could escalate things, especially with someone who is convinced they're in "the right".