Last night, I was stopped at a red light. When the light turned green, I started to go. The next thing I know, a semi comes barreling through the red light, coming within a few feet of T-boning me. I slammed the brakes, thanking Og that there was no one behind me.
I have no idea what the truck driver was thinking, which means he probably wasn’t.
Just because someone does something stupid doesn’t mean they are the cause of someone else being an asshole.
In this case, it’s called proportionate response. Had she passed him and flipped him off, I’d agree that he deserved it. But, no, she put him and herself in intentional danger because she was upset. That is the sign of a true self-entitled asshole.
What I don’t understand is, was her horn broken? I thought a quick toot on the horn was the universal sign for, “Hey, dummie, look at the light and get your butt in gear.”
I share maybe 1% of the blame. Sure I screwed up, but nothing I did warranted the response she gave me. A honk of the horn, or letting a certain finger linger, I could understand.
My first reaction from reading the OP is to blame the bus driver for causing the whole “situation” in the first place. This kind of stuff happens too often because drivers of buses and trucks insist on parking themselves in cramped, busy spaces and disrupting everyone else. Usually there’d be a more appropriate place for the bus to park around the corner or something.
When I worked University Security, we’d occasionally have issues with bus drivers parking wherever the hell they wanted, blocking people in, blocking parking lot exits, blocking streets, etc. Then when we’d wander over, they’d give us feeble excuses about how they were only going to be there a little while - when they’d either been there an hour already, or were still there two hours after we said “Have it moved within 5 minutes”.
Years ago, MTC buses were red. They were so infamous for driving right through red lights that the common joke was that since their bus was red, they assumed a red light meant it was their turn to go.
Arguably the whole situation came about because you were being a negligent driver, which makes you 100% to blame. 