Requires harm? So shooting at someone is ok, as long as you miss?
The driver in this story took a shot at causing a car accident – it just missed.
It seems like if one did that to a police car, one would get into trouble, and possibly it would be described as a “violent” confrontation.
edited to add: and the driver did NOT [keep] “their behavior under sufficient control that nobody was harmed inadvertently,” since it was the cab driver’s reflexes that prevented the accident when the aggressive driver braked hard in front of him. Any time you do something that will cause an accident unless someone else reacts quickly to evade, it’s not “your actions” that are under control, you are gambling that the other person’s actions will prevent the accident.
If you’re going to be pedantic, at least be accurate. Having “violent passions” doesn’t mean that your emotions are beating up someone else’s. The way in which the OP used the word is perfectly cromulent.
IMHO, the cab driver should not have engaged with the other driver. He’s on the clock and has a passenger. I think it goes without saying that the other driver was clearly an idiot.
In my view, a punch is violence even if it misses.
It is pretty much the textbook definition of assault.
Bolding mine:
Intentionally putting another person in reasonable apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. No intent to cause physical injury needs to exist, and no physical injury needs to result. So defined in tort law and the criminal statutes of some states.
I think the cab driver was unwise. Had I been in the cab I would have asked him to take the next turn, Given the propensity of gun violence in the US I would want to get well away from those idiots as quickly as possible.
The driver of the other car drove in a manner that was deliberately dangerous and obviously aimed at threatening the cab that madmonk was in. Is that not ‘violent’? If someone takes a swing at me, I consider them violent, even if they don’t actually connect.
And the hostile remarks from the other car make it unequivocal that the cabbie was the target of these dangerous actions.
A frequent discussion I had with my ex-wife. What is the point of screaming and flipping off the guy that you just perceived as cutting you off? Other than testing to see if he’s a violent asshole who is going to shoot you or pull you out of the car at the next light.
From a legal standpoint I would call it reckless behavior, not violent. Certainly not attempted assault.
Sorry I missed the threat it wasn’t mentioned in the OP. Yes that could be considered assault by the legal definition. Without any actual injury I don’t see any way this would go anywhere in court around here. The courts would look at it as harassment. And if it’s just from menacing then it is just a disorderly persons offense. Or as the rest of the English speaking world calls it, a misdemeanor. If there is injury Assault by Auto is automatically a felony even without serious bodily injury.
Part of my point was why “racist behavior” and the exact definition of what constitutes “assault” versus drunk driving as being the really important thing going on in that situation.
You said you weren’t paying attention but the cabbie did something to upset the other driver. Did he cut him off almost causing an accident? flip him off? moon him?
Something happened. The cabbie is hired to get you from point A to B safely. He didn’t.