ROAD RAGE
Sep 08 '00
I have been victim to road rage many times throughout my VERY short term of driving.
I have been driving for 2 years now and boy do I have a few stories for you!
Let me recall my first experience...
Exiting the freeway, I come to a red light. There are three lanes and this is a one-way road (as MOST freeway exits are). The left and middle lanes are LEFT TURN ONLY lanes. The right lane is RIGHT TURN ONLY. I am in the middle lane. She is in the leftmost lane. No one is in the right lane. We (her and I) are presumably on the road for a reason, not at our final destination, about to turn LEFT as the light turns green.
Now that the atmosphere is described, on with the story already.
The light turns green. I drive through the intersection, gradually turning my steering wheel to the left as I have done hundreds of times before. The road I turn on to is three lanes. I finish my turn landing in the middle lane (where I should be) and I signal and get into the rightmost lane. The rightmost lane is about to end, but not before it curves into a yield to meet a street parallel to the freeway off ramp.
All of a sudden, she, in her respective, leftmost lane, does a death cut, with no signal on into the rightmost lane (the one I currently happen to be traveling in). At this point, she is a few feet in front of my bumper, no exaggeration. At 45mph this can get kind of weird.
I back off by applying the brakes and I see that there are more than just her and I in the rightmost lane. There are others that are still yielding to traffic so they may enter the road.
She applies her brakes a little too early. I almost rear-ended her. She performed a full-fledged brake-check. I don't know if it was because she wanted to torment me some more because the death cut just wasn't enough fun or if she herself rear-ended someone in the past and wanted to have a very preemptive braking period to make sure her world wasn't turning to shambles. She then looks in her rearview mirror with a very angry looking face as if she is waiting for a response.
I, although on the defense am somewhat frustrated with her and eager to get on the road again to get away from her. She just won't let me...
As it finally comes to her turn in the yield and all of the previous cars are out of the queue, she makes a regular traffic merge. Good job. I am next and thankfully, I didn't have to stop because the coast was as clear for me as it was for her. I am now traveling in the rightmost lane. This road is 3 lanes. I enter the leftmost lane with signal and all.
The already forgotten bad driver, AKA her CUTS ME OFF AGAIN. Why? I ask myself.
Before my brain can answer the question, she brake-checks me. My tires screech along with hers and I am again saved from adding part of her Saturn to my car. Only this time, where is the traffic that she needed to make such a sudden stop for? They are still traveling and getting far, far away as we sit stopped in the middle of this road.
In her schizophrenic ways, she looks in her rearview mirror and sticks up her middle finger. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm? Well then, I am just trying to get somewhere and she intrudes upon my life.
Finally, I change lanes and drive away as fast as I possibly can, taking the first side street. I never saw her again.
Let me recall my second experience...
*
This is a totally different incident that took place at a totally different time as the "first experience". When I refer to "her", it's not the her from the "first experience", it's only the name I've given this drive because she happened to be of the female sex as well.
*
I was driving home one day and as I exited the freeway, all was well up to this point until I saw a blue car tailgating me. I was driving much faster than the rest of traffic and they could have easily passed me. Why are you still on my tail? I am nearing home and I notice that the car is still right on my tail...INCHES we're talking. Before this starts to get weird and I've taken way too many turns for this car to still be following me, let alone SO CLOSE, I pull over before a stop sign.
Almost inevitably, she exits the blue car. I'm watching this all in my rearview mirror. She approaches my car. She was yelling loudly but the combination of my music playing and my windows being ROLLED UP held me from discerning what she was yelling about.
I assumed that she blamed me (and needed to follow me home and teach me a lesson) for something I did right before the freeway exit because this is where I noticed her tailgating me. Note: If you are a good driver, you check your rearview mirror often. She couldn't have started any time sooner than a few seconds before I exited.
I quickly got back on the road and went through the stop sign (turning left) that I was pulled over at. After finishing my turn, I look back and she is running back to her car. Oh man, she is going to follow me. So, I pull up in front of my house and hope by now that she has come to her senses and realize that she made a huge fool out of herself back there. It figures that she has not realized...
As I exit my vehicle, she sees me, parks in front of my car (quick-exit style), and gets out screaming and yelling, almost in a cry. Almost as if she was mistaking a 17 year old male for a HOSPITAL. There's a big difference there. There really is. You would have to go completely nuts and not know how to maneuver a car if you are able to mistake a 17 year old male for a big cement building filled with crying and dying people.
Between the swear words and other things that I just didn't understand that she was blaring out of her mouth, I caught some things like. "...you're the reason my father is dead..." "...bad drivers like you..." There were other miscellaneous things thrown in there but I think I got the gist...
She was trying to post blame on me...and my driving for her father's misfortune (death). That's quite an accusation. I haven't killed anyone nor do I ever plan to. In her delusional way, she figured that it must have been me or a person just like me who did it. I doubt that. Whatever did I do wrong in the first place?
Now, I can't wait to get inside my house and call the police. I usually grab a coke, but today has brought on extreme measures and I have to grab the phone instead. As I'm about to do this, she is finishing up and I respond back telling her that I'm going to call the police if she doesn't get out of my life. Although she averted her direction back towards her car, the catch phrases she was using were not dying off any time soon.
Conclusively, she made a fool out of herself numerous times, congregated ALL of the neighbors, and blamed an innocent kid for killing someone all in the span of a few minutes. She could write a book about this. Although, I don't know how much good it would do because it seems that I already have. The freak moved on and did get out of my life. Thankfully I am currently at a new residence and the only thing she has tied to me is this epinion, my car, and you.
I assume that this was a chronic thing for her and I am not the only victim. I have tried to forget it even happened until now.
Are you still here? I've written quite a bit so far and if you liked any of the two above, you're REALLY going to like this one:
Let me recall my third, best, and most recent experience...
*
I refer to the ROAD RAGE inflictee as him and he. I refer to my friend, simply as "my friend". Don't confuse the two.
*
I was the passenger of the vehicle at this time, traveling in a friend's car.
We were traveling in the leftmost lane when it started. He was already traveling in front of us, driving 10-mph under the speed limit, left turn signal on.
As my friend and I wonder when this guy is going to turn, his 35-mph turns into 0-mph, causing the tires to squeal. My friend honks the horn for about a second. We were only at a stop for a very short amount of time (too little to change lanes and go around) before he finally makes his left turn. So the turn is made and time for life to go on as usual. But NO! About a quarter-mile from the quite minor incident, we are stopped in the leftmost lane waiting at a red light.
A car pulled up next to us and, sure enough, it's him. Did he want a closer look or what? I could tell that he didn't come to take a picture by his yelling. Yes, he was yelling, at the top of his lungs. I just tried to ignore it, thinking I have a schizophrenic-attracting magnet connected to me. Wow, this was a long red light. I rolled down the window to see if he desperately needed directions or what.
"IS YOUR HORN BROKEN?" he hollers.
"Um, I don't think so." I respond.
"WELL WHY THE F*CK DID YOU USE IT BACK THERE?" he yells.
After a few seconds of conversing, the situation turned a bit wild. He had this look in his eyes and I could tell that he didn't want to end this without physical damage. I quickly rolled up the window right as the light turned green. YAY, maybe he'll turn back and realize how pointless it would be to follow us.
Of course not. After a few seconds, his car catches up and cuts us off, with a twist of brake-check. We're trying to relax and find the easiest way out to safety, but here comes another red light. As we come up to it, he switches over to the middle lane so he can make room for us so we can have another meeting. Only this time I just didn't provoke him (even eye contact is provoking on the road). I looked forward and kept the window rolled up.
He just didn't have enough.
The light turns green and we take off fast. We take the first left which is luckily a popular street. He has caught back up. I force myself to watch him. He begins to move his car side to side in his lane, coming inches from hitting my friend's car. He's actually trying to run us off the road. I roll down the window and he comes up close. His passenger threw something out the window and it hit the side of my friend's car. More miscellaneous objects were coming out of the car, including gum wrappers, pennies, and what have you.
This guy is absolutely nuts and his passenger is egging him on. I try to come to peace and say, "Just forget this whole thing, I'm sorry." This just wasn't working for the guy. He wanted more.
Up until this time, there were no other cars in site. FINALLY we came to a red light and there were cars already waiting. Would he really continue this around other people, risking one of them being a cop? Luckily, NO. He did an illegal u-turn in the middle of the road and continued on with his violent and deranged life.
After this experience I have learned what little benefit a car horn has with someone suffering from ROAD RAGE. It can probably get you killed even if you use it at a time when you're supposed to.
That just about highlights my run-in with ROAD RAGE for my two year driving period. Conclusively, I encourage you NOT to provoke ANYONE under any circumstances, while on the road. That said, if EVERYONE followed, I guarantee that ROAD RAGE incidents would be more than halved.
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Epinions.com ID:
kmic
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