Help...scared of the dog lady!

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Hi all,

Thought I'd try here for some advice.

Every night I drop off my work colleague I carpool with at his place on my way home. 50% of the time I drive and drop him off, 50% of the time he drives and I collect my car. Either way I have to go to his house. He lives in quite an affluent area which is a fairly new subdivision and most houses have multiple garages, multiple expensive cars, etc. His neighbour sometimes walks her 2 dogs around the street, and the other week she was doing this weird signal with her hands to me that I didn't understand, so I stopped, wound down my window and asked if she was ok or if she needed help. She walked over to my car and the conversation went something like this:

Her: Slow down! What are you doing? It's not a race track? Can't you see there are children and animals on this street? (there was no one but us and her husband)
Me: Sorry, I was only doing 40
Her: Well the speed limit on this street is 20!
Me: OK (then realising this was a lie) actually it's 50 on all streets (yes, where I live, and that's kph)
Her: You were going too fast! This is a quiet neighbourhood!
Me: Honest, I was only going 40
Her: Well it's 20 on this street, this street is different, it has a lower speed limit!

I eventually drove off. She was basically standing next to my car pointing in at my dashboard, I was quite shocked, people don't normally confront me like this. Anyway, I had a bit of a laugh about it to coworker, then yesterday when I dropped him off, she was standing outside his house walking her dogs again. We laughed a bit saying "oh no, it's the dog lady again!" and when I pulled out of his driveway (how fast can you go pulling out of a driveway....) she was glaring at me shaking her head repetitively. I wound down my window and she shouted at me to slow down, so I said "I was only going 50!" but I was so nervous and the situation was so stupid I cracked up laughing. Then I wound up the window and drove off faster than normal (still under 50!) because I didn't want her to shout at me again. Coworker said that when i left she came and knocked on his door and told him to tell me to slow down, and that she is "like the police." I laugh when I'm nervous! I know this was the wrong thing to do.

Today when coworker drove into his driveway, she was out in her yard. I was terrified to get out of his car and into mine. She watched as I searched for my keys and got into my car, so i waited and waited until she went inside to drive off. Now I'm scared she'll be outside every time we get home since it's summer and nice weather for walking dogs.

So what do people reckon I should do? I haven't broken the law, but Coworker says I should apologise to her. What should I do if she confronts me again? I have an old hatchback which is often dirty due to where we work, and I don't get much time to clean it. Do you think she doesn't like me because I have my dirty old hatch in her fancy street? I live in a lower income fringe/semi-rural suburb and no one treats anyone like that around here.

Another thing I should add is that my council has a law saying it's illegal to walk dogs on footpaths without leads, and her dogs are never on leads. Coworker says that maybe I should print out the council laws and put in her mailbox but I don't want to do this or damage his relationship with his neighbour.

Do you live in the U.S? Because I don't know of anywhere in this country that the speed limit for a residential/neighborhood street is 50 mph. It's usually 35 at max but 20 is not unusual either. Also clearly you freaked this lady out with your driving...she's probably genuinely afraid you could hit her, her dogs or a kid driving at those speeds on a quiet neighborhood street so maybe slow down. Why do you need to go 40 or 50 MPH to get to this guys driveway exactly?

I think she doesn't like you because she's worried you might run her dogs over or someones kid...kids and peoples pets do tend to play and roam about out front of houses from time to time, so its best to go slower so you don't hit a child or animal.

I mean she may scare you some, but she could be losing sleep over this...just terrified you're going to hit her dogs, she may be more afraid of your driving than you are of her.

Sweetleaf, i said it was kph, kilometres per hour, I live in Australia. Not sure what the conversion is to miles. In my state, Tasmania, the law is 50kph unless signposted. I definitely dont go this speed in the driveway.

Just drive slower, man. Suppose some kid who is playing, or some dog or cat, darts in front of you?

The lady has a point. You don’t have to apologize. Just drive slower.

actually i had to deal with a similar situation in 2012. The speed limit in my apartment complex was 20 and thats what I did. This lady would yell at me to slow down. I told her using very vulgar language that I was doing the speed limit and if she had an issue call the police. She did, and the police arrived. I told the officers that I did the speed limit and that I stopped for the stop signs. They said her issue was that I accelerate too fast. I told them there were no state laws on the books about accelerating too quickly unless the tires broke traction with the ground, which was not the case here. I added if she is worried about her kids, they should play on the playground equipment and not in the parking lot. The officers agreed that the kids should not be out in the parking lot and they left. This lady continued to be a problem for me until the day I moved out. I knew I was in the right and I was not going to let a breeder tell me I'm not.

Your situation here seems to be that you are afraid of confrontation with this lady. If you are in fact in the right, get right up in her face and tell her to F off.

Thanks for the tips guys. forgot to mention I've been doing this for 4 years and never had an issue. I've slowed it down to 30kph so here's hoping she gets off my back.

That’s smart.

I think everything will be okay now.