Road Rage
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I admit I wasn't a very tolerant driver when I was
younger. One day driving on a three lane highway in heavy rain in
the speed lane I realized that a guy in a brand new decked out pick-up
truck next to me was honking his horn at me, yelling and giving me the
finger. I honestly don't know what I did to upset him as I didn't
even notice him until he started honking. Since it was raining I
didn't try to roll down the window to hear what he was screaming but
through hand gestures he made it clear that he wanted me to pull over to
the break down lane so we could get into a fist fight (picture poor mans
sign language, he points at me, points at himself, holds up a fist the
points at break down lane).
Just as I worked out what he wanted we
came up to a car in his lane so he had to pull into the first lane to
remain parallel with me. I gestured back to him (pointed at myself,
pointed at him, held up a fist and pointed at the breakdown lane) with a
questioning look. He stayed in the first lane vigorously nodding his
head apparently happy that I finally understood (and probably anticipating
a need to pull into the break down lane soon!). Did I point out he
was in a truck that had to cost at least 20 grand and I was in a $500 beat
up VW Rabbit? I gave him the thumbs up signal and swerved across the
middle lane and came within about one inch of his truck. The last I
saw of him he had screeched to a halt with white knuckles gripping the
steering wheel. I swear I think I made him piss his pants!
RoadRage0818-04
Ok, this isn't really road RAGE....it's a story about a
car accident, but I think it fits here. I was fifteen, and in
driver's ed. I lived in a small town in Montana, only about thirty
five hundred to four thousand people, so when we had to practice
"city" driving, we had to go to a town about forty miles away.
Well, we got to the town, and stopped at Taco Bell for dinner. My
driver's ed instructor decided that I was going to drive us out of there
and to the mall, which was across the street. Now, I'm really
nervous, because I'd never driven in this "city" (it's a town
really, as most Montana "cities" are) and there were two boys
from my band class in the back, so I didn't want to do anything stupid for
them to make fun of later. (I wasn't very popular in high school.)
I pulled out of Taco Bell, and proceeded to get in the
left turning lane to turn into the mall parking lot. I put on my
blinker, and started turning really slowly (hey, I was nervous!). As I was turning, the green arrow turned
yellow. Me being a VERY inexperienced driver, I asked my instructor
what I should do. He said that I was already turning, so I had to
keep doing so because I was already half turned by that point. Ok,
so I keep turning (slowly) and I would have made it before it turned red,
but out of nowhere comes this truck doing at least 55 (it was a 35 mile
zone) coming down from the opposite direction. The truck slams into
us, and send us flying into the parking lot. Needless to say, this
was very scary. Thank God no one was seriously hurt (My instructor
hurt his back, I smashed my knee on the steering wheel, and the boys in
the back weren't hurt at all.)
We all just kind of sit there for a second,
making sure we're alive, and then we noticed the beer. That's right,
beer had literally gone flying out of the truck and got all over our windshield,
the car, the ground, etc. Suddenly, the driver of
the truck comes walking, well, staggering over to us and leans in my
window (it was May, so we had the windows down.) I could have gotten drunk
off his breath! He starts screaming at me and calling me some not so
nice names, and telling me that this is all my fault.
I'm just mortified by this point, because
now there are people gathering around and most of them are laughing
because you can see the big yellow "Student Driver" things on
the sides of the car. Well, while we're waiting for the cops to show
up, we see another truck pull up and park. The driver and the two
other drunk as hell ladies he was with are taking all their open beer cans
and shoving them in the other truck. Unbelievable. I was just
waiting for the cops to come and arrest this a**hole for drunk driving.
Sadly, this was not what happened. I should have remembered that
Montana is the epitome of a "good ol boys" state. Plus, we
were from another town, and most towns in Montana
"take care of their own" or some crap.
So, the cops finally show up and proceed to
write ME a ticket. Refusing to yield to hazardous traffic while
making a left turn. I can still see it written on my ticket.
Thank God it got wiped off my record when I turned eighteen. We
tried to explain about the beer all over our windshield, the ground, all
that, but the driver of the truck said it was....get ready for
this....OIL! And the cops took it, and let him go! They said
he was indeed intoxicated, but not enough to prosecute because it wasn't
above the legal limit. My ass. Like I said, I could have
gotten drunk off his breath, and his eyes were so bloodshot you could
barely see them, not to mention the fact that he, and the ladies, could
barely freaking walk! We also tried to tell the cops about them
stashing their opened containers in another truck, but it had already
taken off, and I could tell they either didn't believe
us, or didn't want to deal with it. Plus, our car was totaled, and
his truck wasn't that bad at all.
Later on, the driver actually tried to sue my
high school too! That didn't work, thank God. I still, to this
day, don't know how they got away with giving me a ticket. If I'm
not mistaken, when I light turns red the other ones don't turn green for a
couple seconds. The arrow had not ever gone to red yet when they guy
smashed into us, it was still yellow, so I know the guy still had a red
light from where he was coming from.
To top off this story, this incident followed me all
through high school. It's an urban legend in my old high school
now. We had to reschedule all of our driving time in
class, because now we only had one car instead of two. When I walked
into class that day, everyone laughed at me....and remember, I wasn't very
popular to begin with. It was horrible. Two years later, I had
my instructor as my History teacher, and barely a day went by when he
didn't say something like "Hey Ashley, my back is kind of
hurting today." and stuff like that. And of course, after we
graduated, I was reading my yearbook, and one of the boys in the car
with me that day, when asked what the worst part of high school was,
proceeded to put "Riding in the driver's ed car with
Ashley."
RoadRage0818-04
Many years ago , a high school friend had an awesome
vintage convertible car. When we went anywhere, she usually drove. Anyway,
a group of us were out one night when she cut through a local subdivision.
She was NOT speeding or driving recklessly. She was a really careful
driver. (She loved that car!) She had rounded a turn when this man
comes whipping around and cuts in front of her car. She stopped, stunned.
This older man jumps out of his car ( you could smell the alcohol on him)
and starts fighting with the guys in the car. I stood up in the seat,
and he hit me in the face. I was maybe 89, 90 pounds back then.
I, to this day, do not know what his problem was. We
were all too scared to tell our parents. Who would have believed a bunch
of teenagers, right? Fast forward a few months. My friend was driving
again. There were 4 of us girls in the car. Daytime. So my friend drives
through the subdivision because she thought it was safe. The same man
attacks us again! The car we were in stalled, and my friend could not get
it started again. Here's this psycho chasing us down. I can only assume he
had mistaken her for someone else, but what could a 17 year old girl have
done to a 40 something year old man? She got the car started at the last
minute and we got the heck out of there. Anyway, it was years before I
would drive in that subdivision, but, ironically, I live there now. I have
not seen him since. Maybe he attacked the wrong person.
RoadRage0927-04
This is how one goes about to initiate road
rage, as I learned not too long ago. Every year in July, I go to a
week-long event in Illinois with a bunch of my friends. It's about a four
hour drive and I was the only one who had a car. By the end of the week, I
had injured my shoulder and, topped by a week-long deprivation of sleep,
had a very hard time driving. I asked a friend of mine to drive most of
the way home. At some point during the drive, I dozed off. When I came to,
my friend was decelerating from going ninety-five miles per hour. I was a
little disconcerted. I'm not big on speeding and my car is over ten years
old. My friend, on the other hand, rarely goes under twenty-five miles
under the speed limit. We compromised at going eighty in a sixty-five
speed zone.
We had been driving in the left lane for a while when a
woman going at least ninety pulls up behind us and starts tailgating. My
friend thought it would be just hilarious to slow down to the speed of a
car in the right lane- about sixty-five. The woman behind us turned purple
from anger. Being a generally safe driver and recognizing a dangerous
situation, I blatantly ordered my friend to speed up and change lanes. As
we expected, the now crazed woman hurled past us, yelling and gesturing in
unmentionable ways. What we didn't expect was being hit by a half-empty
cup of soda out of her open car window at a speed that must have been
nearing a hundred miles per hour. We were duly terrified. While we weren't
exactly blameless situation (my friend is never driving my poor car
again), the thought of what harm that cup of soda could have done if it
had hit something other than just the side panels makes me wonder whether
some people are raised in secret colonies of savages.
RoadRage1004-04
I was sitting at a red light behind five or six cars in
the right lane at a busy intersection. In Florida, we can turn right
on red, but cars in this lane had the option of turning right or going
straight. If the car at the front was going straight, all the
cars behind it had to wait till the light turned green. It wasn't a
big deal because the light wasn't that long.
That afternoon, the car at the front of the line was
going straight, and the driver of the Jeep in front of me got mad. He
honked his horn, revved his engine and rocked back and forth with his
clutch. Finally, he decided he couldn't wait any longer and
pulled up onto the curb, drove down the sidewalk the length of the four or
five cars ahead of him and stopped when he arrived at the end of the
sidewalk. He yelled out the window at the driver waiting at the
light, and then he bounced off the curb and onto the busy street.
Oncoming cars were not expecting someone to be pulling off the sidewalk,
so the Jeep's sudden presence caused some screeching tires, but he didn't
seem to care.
RoadRage0719-04
I was trying to park in a Wal-Mart parking lot a little
before Xmas and it was really crowded. Normally I would just drive
to the farthest reaches of a lot and walk but this lot was standing room
only so I had no choice but to find a car that was getting ready to leave
and wait for a spot to open up. I found someone getting into their
car and wouldn't you know it, instead of leaving right away they spent
five minutes doing only God knows what before pulling out. About
thirty seconds before they actually pulled out a woman with a car load of
kids coming from the opposite direction pulls up and puts on her blinker
for the space I have been waiting for. Now the spot was in a corner
and we were on opposite sides of the corner so I don't really blame her.
If she saw my car at all it probably wasn't obvious that I was waiting for
the spot and because of the geometry of the situation I knew I could pull
into the spot before she could "claim jump" it. What I
didn't expect is that she would wait for me to get out of my car and start
yelling at me in a foreign language. From the volume, tone and
gestures I feel safe in assuming she was laying on the worst swear words
she knew. When I approached her car to explain that I hadn't just
"stolen" her spot but had actually "saved" her from
doing that very thing to me she drove off (maybe she thought I was going
to attack her?). About thirty minutes later I saw her and her
brood in the store. I thought, ah, now I can tell her what a nice
guy I am and that I would never steal a spot someone was waiting for.
I don't know if she didn't understand English or just didn't care but I
got another two minute language lesson at top volume in the store.
Kids, the moral of this story is don't try to be nice if they are an
idiot. They know they are idiots and they are happy with it that
way!
RoadRage0818-04
I live in Wisconsin a state that is known for the cold
winters and warm people. I was driving along a two lane highway
in town when I noticed a small child playing on the side of the road
ahead. I watched as drivers swerved around the child but no one
stopped to help. When I got to the child, I pulled off
the road and pickup the little girl and brought her to safety. I
noticed a porch with an open gate which explained how the child got away
and a mother coming from around the house. I explained that the child
had been on the road. She was very thankful but still had to
push the child in her husband's arms and yell for me to run to avoid being
attacked by her husband.
RoadRage0901-04
I love this site! Can't get enough of it!
Anyway, here is my story: Me and a friend were heading up to
college that we were planning to attend in order to visit a good friend
that was a student at the school. We were traveling up Rt. 1 in the
midst of lunchtime traffic near the mall. While we were sitting at a
long traffic light, I had noticed that the driver behind me was kind of a
bit close. My friend had turned around to signal for her to stay
there because I was going to inch up to provide a cushion between our cars
(we were on a hill and I didn't want to hit her car). My friend had turned
around to signal her again, and the driver (an elderly lady) flipped her
off!! I was in disbelief! What has our world come to that
elderly ladies flip you off when you are trying to PREVENT a possible
accident?!?
RoadRage1019-04
Hi! I just "discovered" your site and I
think it's hilarious! Here is one for the "Road Rage"
category. It was early winter in the northeast and there was a
light snowfall when I pulled up behind a middle aged woman in a nice
mid-sized car stopped at a stoplight. A few seconds later a young
girl who obviously didn't have much experience driving in snow rear-ended
my car so hard that she pushed me into the woman in front of me. I
pulled my registration out of the glove box and got out of my car so we
could all exchange papers.
As soon as I stepped out of my car the middle aged woman
in front of me started yelling and swearing at me in a tirade that would
do a drunken sailor proud. Knowing that I was not at fault for the
accident I just grinned at her...my grin getting bigger and bigger as she
came close to having a coronary. Finally, she realized that
her rant was not having the desired effect on me and said, "What the
F. are you smiling about?". Now that I could get a word in
without raising my voice I pointed to the young woman (who looked like she
wanted to be anywhere else in the world right now) standing behind me and
said, "I think you want to talk to the young lady who rear-ended me
and pushed my car into yours."
She was so embarrassed that she took a quick look
at her car (no damage), told the girl to forget about the paperwork, got
back in her car and drove off. My car at the time had a lot of dents
so I told the young girl I wasn't interested in filing a report either and
we both went on our way. I didn't mind not getting an apology
(I really enjoyed the rant!). My question is was she more
embarrassed that she was yelling at the wrong person, or by the fact that
the person she was yelling at had also been rear-ended and wasn't behaving
in any way as poorly as she was?
RoadRage0818-04
The more I read these stories the more I remember things
that I have seen. Here are a couple of "poetic" justice
stories. 1.) Picture heavy snow and a four lane highway
with only the first two lanes plowed. I'm in heavy traffic going
about 20 MPH and you can see the two plows up ahead. A couple of
brave souls in large 4 wheel drive vehicles go by when I see this guy in a
BMW doing about 45-50 MPH in the unplowed third lane (following in the
ruts left by the 4 wheel drives). Less than 10 minutes later I
passed this guy standing outside of his BMW which is facing the wrong way
with the back end sticking into a snow bank from a previous storm.
He was on a cell phone, I assume calling for a plow (good luck getting one
in the middle of a snowstorm!)
2.) I was driving in the fast lane of a three lane
road when I saw a state police cruiser in the middle lane. I
had no idea what the speed limit was so I slowed down and the person
behind me started to tail gate me. I very slowly started to pass the
cruiser when he flashed his lights and hit the siren for a couple of
seconds. Whoops, I must be speeding so I slow down (with the guy
behind me still tail gating -- he had to have seen the cruiser flash me,
right?). I pull in behind the cruiser and as soon as I'm out of the
way the tail gaiter floors it and shoots past me and the cruiser.
The cruiser immediately turns on his lights and siren and pulls out after
the guy. I saw him getting his ticket a couple of hundred yards up
the road!
RoadRage0818-04
I must have a million of these (should that worry
me?). A little background, I had loaned my friend a
sledgehammer so he could break some concrete away from a leaking pipe in
his basement in an effort to save a little cash with the plumber. He
had just returned the sledgehammer and it was on the floor behind my
driver's seat. I was going to a convenience store on some back
roads and I stopped at a stop sign, looked both ways then took a right
turn. About ten seconds later a guy locks up his brakes right behind
me. This guy then follows me to the store and parks in the spot to
my left. We both get out of our cars and he starts swearing at me
saying that I drove through the stop sign and nearly caused an accident.
I told him I had stopped at the sign and he was nowhere in sight when I
made the turn (there is a slight hill there so he must have been on the
other side of it when I looked left), the speed limit on the road was 25
MPH, he must have been going at least 50 MPH and HE was the one that
almost caused an accident.
Apparently he did not like these facts since he said he
was going to "teach me a lesson" and started to come around his
car towards me. I hadn't closed my door so I reached inside, picked
up the sledgehammer (I'm talking HUGE sledgehammer here, not some little
mallet) and held it so he could see it. As soon as he saw the
sledgehammer in my hands he did a 180 got back in his car and drove away
at high speed. It's best not to initiate a confrontation
because you never know how crazy the other person is. I got lucky
this time by the fact that I turned out to be the crazier of the two of
us!
RoadRage0818-04
I see a lot of people writing in about what happened to
them but no one owning up to their own misdeeds so here is what I did
(long ago)...
When I was in college it was typical that if you had a
late class the student lot would be full so most people would pull in on
the grass surrounding the lot. The grass area was ten feet deep so
we would pull straight in to allow the maximum number of cars to use this
unofficial parking lot extension. One winter day I did this and went
off to class. When I came out there was a car parallel parked on the
road right behind my car. There was another car to my right and a
snow bank to my left so I was blocked in. Instead of biting the
bullet and waiting for the person blocking me to leave I tried to
"gun" my car over the snow bank. I actually made it to the
top of the bank when I lost my momentum and my car slid sideways down the
bank and right into the car that had been blocking me. I couldn't
get away from the car because of the snow bank and I couldn't push the car
because I had no traction (don't think I didn't try) so I called a tow
truck.
When the tow truck arrived the driver looked at the
situation and told me he couldn't pull my car out because he would be
dragging it against the other car causing more damage. I explained
that I didn't want him to tow my car, I wanted him to pull the other car
into the street so I could get out. After a little quick negotiating
we settled on double the normal rate paid in cash with no paperwork.
He pulled the other car sideways out into the middle of the street and
beat a hasty retreat before anyone could notice what he had done. I
drove away, happy to be free and unconcerned about the damaged car now
sitting in the middle of the road. I wouldn't do now what I
did then but I have to admit...I've never really been sorry about it.
RoadRage0818-04
Love your site - I cannot believe the audacity of some
people! Especially the jerks (excuse me, guilty party) in this story. My
now ex-boyfriend (EBF) and I were sitting in my car in a parking area of a
major beach. Nearby is a dirt road leading to a section of beach used for
ATV's. This was in summer of 1995, and Hurricane Felix was brewing off the
coast of North Carolina at this point and was wreaking havoc as far up as
New York, where we were, so that section of the beach was closed and a
barricade was set in the opening of that road.
Anyway, we're sitting there when this 4-wheel truck
showed up and drove up to the barricade. I guess the driver didn't know it
was closed off and he's leave, but he backed the truck up and rammed
through the barricade! I saw another guy about the same age in the
passenger seat, and two kids in the back! I'm sorry, but if you're going
to be stupid, do it on your own, but don't bring innocent children down
with you!
Neither EBF or I had a cell phone at that point, but
another witness did and called the police. There was a state police
headquarters on beach property, so they responded very quickly. They went
down that dirt road to investigate and came back with the bumper, which
got torn off in the process. With the license plate still attached. Talk
about karma!
Meanwhile, the truck blew a tire and only got 10-15 feet
down, and the driver was arrested (gee, those a******* got REAL far!). I
was told later both men had been drinking. EBF, the other witness and I
went to the station house to make statements.
A couple months, l got a message from the DA regarding
the incident. I called him back thinking he was going to have me testify,
and he said there was a warrant out for the driver's arrest and he skipped
town. Lovely! The following summer, EBF and I broke up and I moved out, he
left a couple of months later, and I never heard anything else about the
driver of the incident (once, I called the DA again to see if he had hear
anything new - he hadn't). I don't know what became of that driver, but I
hope he's cleaned up his act (or at least stopped endangering innocent
children).
RoadRage0903-04
Page Last Updated May 15, 2007
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