My First Brush with Road Rage

Couple of caveats before I get going, here. First, this happened about six months ago. I’ve been meaning to rant about it since the day it happened, but I’m only just now getting around to it. People always say that I’ll never make anything of myself if I don’t stop procrastinating, but I tell them, “Just you wait!”

Second, although this rant does involve an asshole in an SUV, it is NOT an anti-SUV rant. Most of my friends drive SUVs, and they are all excellent and conscientious drivers. I would really, really, really appreciate it if you’d all keep any anti-SUV comments you want to make out of my thread. I reserve the right to verbally abuse anyone who does not grant me this simple courtesy in the most vile way possible.

Third, I’m typing this on the computer I’ve set up in my garage, and someone just opened the mail slot, looked me straight in the eye, and went away. That has absolutely nothing to do with this rant, but it’s creepy as fuck. Excuse me whilst I fetch a baseball bat.

Now then. After twelve years of putting it off, I finally decided to get my driver’s liscence. (See above comment re: procrastinating.) I spent about a month puttering about suburban neighborhoods with various friends and family members. Finally, my dad had to make a business trip down to Santa Clara, and thought it would be an excellent opportunity to practice freeway and city driving. So, off we went, on about an hour-long drive down the coast through San Francisco and to points further South.

We get to Santa Clara, my dad conducts his buisness, and we head back North. After a couple missed tries (there was some street constuction) we find the on-ramp. I’m on the curve of the ramp, looking to my left to keep an eye on the freeway traffic. I guess I was drifting to the right a little, but it was a pretty wide lane. Then two things happen, more or less simultaneously. My dad shouts a warning and I hear a car horn on my right. I look over, and there’s the biggest goddam SUV I’ve ever seen about a foot away from my (tiny) car, trying to pass me on the onramp. It was jet black, and shiny the way only a brand-new car can be. And, maybe this was just the adrenaline, but I swear to God, it made the Canyonero look like a Matchbox car.

I swerve hard to the left, where, thankfully, there’s nothing but open space. The other driver swerves right, where he clips an concrete embankment with his rear fender. He slows, I speed up, he drops behind me so he’s right on my bumper and leans on his horn. I look in shock at my dad.

“Was that my fault?”

“No. Fuck no! What was that asshole thinking?”

Thinking, it turns out, is not a word that can be applied to this guy. The ramp straightens out, running parrallel to the freeway, but not yet quite a part of it. There’s still that big, triangular, paved no-mans-land between the on-ramp and the freeway proper. This does not deter our intrepid motorist, who immediatly passes me on my left and cuts me off.

At this point, we are no longer on the on-ramp. We are now on the freeway, and should be doing 55, but I’m eye-level with this guy’s bumper, and he’s stopping! By the time I figure out what he’d doing, I’m going too slow to merge with the traffic in the next lane, so I have to stop, too. Which is when the guy gets out of his SUV, on a busy freeway, and starts heading towards me. And he’s a big fuckin’ dude, too. Six foot and change, and he clearly works out a lot. I stare at him in shock. This is pretty far beyond my realm of experience, and I hate to say it, but I don’t have the best reaction time in the world. I look at my dad, to see if he has any suggestions, and his seat is empty. My dad, to whom, apparently, the word “thinking” only occasionally applies, has gotten out of the car to meet this guy head-on. My sixty-five year old, chronically ill father. Is facing down a guy who’s got half a foot, fifty pounds of muscle, and thirty years on him. They’re standing in front of my hood, nose-to-nose, screaming themselves red-faced. I am agog.

Now, this is the part that’s embarassing to admit. I just sit there. I don’t have a clue what to do. I’m not really scared of the guy, although I certainly should be, I’m just in shock. I truly do believe that if he’d taken a swing at my dad, I’d have been out of my car like a shot to get my ass stomped right next to my old man, but thankfully, Captain Testosterone (That’d be the guy in the SUV, not my dad. I appreciate that it might be hard to tell the difference at this point in the story.) backs down. My dad gets back in the car, cursing under his breath, and slams the door. “I shoulda punched that asshole in the throat,” he mutters. Cpt. Testy heads back to his SUV, but before he gets in, he turns around and stares murder at me. I do the only thing I can think of. I flash my biggest shit-eating grin and give him a jaunty wave.

He gets in his car and takes off. He’s not quite done, though. He lets me get ahead of him, then passes me and cuts me off again. This time, at least, he doesn’t stop, takes the next exit, and vanishes out of my life, and hopefully, at some later date, head-on into a lamp post.

I did get a good look at that rear right fender when he cut me off that second time, though. He really fucked up his shiny new car. I take a great deal of pleasure in that. I’m sure that we both left the encounter a warm feeling, but whereas mine was the satisfied glow of seeing an asshole fuck up his new toy through his own stupidity, his was doubtlessly the acidic burn of a new ulcer eating through the lining of his stomach.

Welcome to the wonderful world of driving :rolleyes:

Stupid angry reckless drivers suck. But trust me, you’ll find more of them. It’s good you got out of this situation unscathed.

Holy shit-did you get his plate numbers?

See? This is why we should make trunk monkey’s legal. Nothing like a chimpanzee with a tire iron to deal with a case of road rage.

(I’m sorry you had to deal with that, Miller. I hope he rolled his pretty SUV after he took the exit ramp.)

Good road rage rant.

I guess they do improve with age like fine wine.

So when are you going to throw out those old golf clubs? :smiley:

This reminds me of the time I nearly got run off the road by one of those rediculously huge ass pickup trucks because I deigned to pass his royal highness.

We were both stopped at a traffic light next to each other, and when the light turned green, he must have been scratching his ass with his nose, because he didn’t move for a few seconds. I needed to move over, so I did, i.e. I passed him. Apparently he was now in urgent need to go wipe the shit out of his nose, because he immediately sped up and got within a few inches of my bumper. Since there were other cars in front of me and to the side of me, I couldn’t go anywhere. This continued foir a bit until a new lane opened up, whereupon raging asshole decided to swerve around me so close that if I didn’t take evasive maneuvers he would have slammed into me. He then proceeded to run a red light at a busy intersection…where are the cops when you need them?

I’ll never understand WTF is wrong with people.

Everbody has fundamentally asshole moments. Some unusuall susceptible types just succumb more readily into them when encased within cars. (And kudos, Miller, for realizing the car ain’t the person. People who get all lathered up over Meyer-Briggs labels too often happily deduce twonky psychological tendencies based on cars. Go figure.)
Quite a while back I read a book called Dinosaur Brain, which rather light-heartedly suggested that we all have reptilian killer instincts lurking under the surface. I extrapolated that road rage was dinosaur brains loosed by seeing other big, anonymous metal things instead of people. “Get outta my way! Me FIRST! Snarl. ROAR. Swipe.” It sounds like your wacko driver channeled his inner dinosaur as a matter of preference.
So this putz 1. tried to pass you, on the wrong side, on a highway ramp, thereby 2. veering into a concrete abutment.
If’d he been in control of his own impulses, not to mention his vehicle, none of it would have happened. His choice, his idiiocy. Doubtless he’ll crash again, and the most that can be hoped is that he doesn’t kill or injure someone else in the process.
Glad you and your father came out alive and unharmed, Miller.

Veb
In my last bad accident–10 yrs. ago–an id-addled idiot gunned his car, slashing through tight traffic, and promptly slammed HARD into the rear end of car full of kids; bounced off that one into another; then slid along the entire side of my car. Four cars totalled; 1 person injured. His petulant response to the cops? “I don’t know why this keeps happening to me!”

I love this sentence. Granting a simple courtesy, in the most vile way possible. Sounds like the kind of courtesy that could inspire road rage. :wink:

Wow, that came out tortured, didn’t it? Of course, I meant that the abuse will be vile, not the courtesy. :smack:

Damn SUV fuckers :stuck_out_tongue:

Just want to see Miller finally worked up…

Dunderhead! Miscreant! Vile rapscallion!

Oh No!! :eek:

‘candy-gram…’

Oh, I should add that my mysterious peeper turned out to be a kid who lives down the block, handing out fliers offering to mow lawns and wash cars and other summer-jobby type stuff. I didn’t notice he’d put a flier through the slot until later.

I still worked him over with the baseball bat, just on general principles.

Probably wisest.
It coulda been a Girl Scout.
Some of their Thin Mints have tended toward stale lately.
Animals. all of 'em.

Veb

In the most vile way possible, of course.

No no no. Miller was courteous in the most vile way possible while workin’ the kid over with a baseball bat.

Sorry to hear it, Miller. Reminds me of one of the best days of my life:

I was heading on my morning commute on a four lane divided road. I was in the left lane, and the right lane was packed with traffic. I was moving along at a pretty good clip (speed limit 45, I was doing around 60. Look, I live in Nashville. It’s normal.). So this guy in a new 350Z gets on my bumper, starts flashing his lights and honking his horn. Now, there is no where for me to get over to, so I just ignore him, and figure he’ll live. He cuts off a car in the right lane, swerves in front of me, zooms forward, then hits his brakes. I slowed down, and he went on.

We come to a big intersection, with two left turn lanes. He’s in the lane next to me (I’m going straight), and he cussing me and flipping me off. He’s just livid. He peels out as soon as the light turns green, just flying. Right into…

A police car. Almost head on. With its lights on. Siren going. Everything.

I just drove on, waved at them, and enjoyed the rest of my day.

This story reminded me of my one and only true road rage incident. My excuse for such obnoxious behavior is that I quit smoking not even 24 hours prior (I was at about hour # 16 and REALLY grumpy). In fact, I left Home Depot because the idea that other humans were breathing and minding their own business RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME was seriously pissing me off. This is what nicotine withdrawal can do to a person!

So I get in my car and leave Home Depot. I get to the little side street that takes me away from the parking lot, to the very busy street that takes me home. We’re talking about a simple right turn, whenever it’s clear. Bubba in his pick-'em-up truck pulls up behind me. The light is red. I hesitate long enough to look at all four points of the intersection to, I dunno, make sure I would live if I pulled out. Bubba chooses that moment to honk at me because I’m just not pulling out fast enough to suit him.

I pull out, sure enough and he follows me. By this time, I’m flipping him off and screaming four letter words at the top of my lungs, completely oblivious to the fact that he could be carrying so I could be putting myself in grave danger. Don’t care, I can’t smoke so I’m going to take it out on this asshole. We drove down the next mile or so of road together, screaming obscenities and flipping each other off.

Now I look back and laugh – what dolts we were both. At the time, I believe it took me about four hours to cool down before I was ready to interact with any other humans. And another three days before the nicotine withdrawal abated and I was able to drive in my car without wanting to kill someone. Now it’s just funny.

Dogzilla- What’s the definition of a nanosecond? It’s the time between when the light turns green and the guy behind you starts to honk.

diku- that is one fine story!

My story- DH and I were at a light, turning left. The light turned green and the guy behind us began to honk. This was odd as we hadn’t kept him waiting an inordinate amount of time, just long enough to ensure that the intersection was going to be clear before moving.

I have to add here that my nickname for DH is “Mr. Safety”- he has never had an accident ot a ticket and was a professional driver for many years. He is a very good driver.

Anyway, the street we turned on to was very wide, maybe even 4 lanes wide (2 and 2) but not divided by any stripes or lines or anything. The guy behind us was now on our rear bumper, honking and gesturing. We sucked up over to the right to let him pass, but he was still not happy. He gunned his engine and passed us, and then cut us off very closely.

My husband had an old BMW with an odd looking bumper that pokes out kinda far for a car. In cutting us off, this guy’s bumper hooked our bumper. Our bumper tore his bumper completely off, license plate and all, and he just sped away! I’m not sure he even knew anything had happened.

We pulled over to check for damage (none to our car!), stowed his bumper into our trunk and continued on our way. Later, we dropped his bumper off in a dumpster.