Road Rage - I don't get it.

My brother is not an aggressive driver. He’s not a bad driver. He doesn’t do most of the things I’ve seen ranted about over in the Pit. He might forget to use his blinker while changing lanes on the freeway, but he doesn’t cut people off or tailgate.

Last night, my brother was the victim of road rage. Three people are in Kanabec County jail and a few more (2 or 3) are in Pine County jail charged with Attempted Vehicular Homicide. Adam’s fine. I haven’t seen it yet, but my dad says his car is “fucked up from one end to the other”. Adam was rear-ended at high speeds, then they tried to run him off the road from his driver’s side. When the cars stopped, they came after it with a hammer.

Adam is physically okay. I am so thankful. And I’ve never been more pissed off in my whole life. And, to make things worse, I haven’t actually talked to Adam yet. I need to. I haven’t said “You mean a lot to me” to him in quite a while. I hate how it always takes something bad to remind you.

I don’t understand road rage. I gripe about things when I drive like, “Oh I hate when people do that…” But I can’t imagine ever slamming my car into another one while flying down a highway. How crazy does a person have to be?

I’m sorry this is so long, but I just have one more thing to say. PLEASE, please calm down behind the wheel. Nothing is worth the damage that you will inevitably cause, in your life and in the lives of your victim’s families. Swear, shake your fist, or just fucking BREATHE. I could have lost my brother last night.

WHAT???

That’s crazy! And I’m very sorry to hear about it.

Are you sure it was road rage (i.e., your brother did something stupid–yet relatively harmless–in traffic and his attackers were after revenge), or could it have been something else?

I don’t have any theories, and I do realize that people get shot over similar incidents, but it seems to me that your “warning” (for people to calm down behind the wheel) is not necessary among people who… well… are NOT insane (and that it wouldn’t be heeded by a person who’d do something like what was done to your brother)!

This is absolutely outlandish.

I’ve sworn at others in my car (windows rolled up, thankyouverymuch), and wished I could run them off the road when they do things like cut me off and such.

However.

I never WOULD. Christ, people. Are you in that much of a hurry, or that disillusioned with life that you must resort to this?

I agree with auntie em that people who do this probably are NOT rational, and thus don’t have the same thought process as we do.

I’m glad Adam is not physically harmed. I hope he’s not too banged up mentally as well.

I will admit to getting pretty testy with jerky drivers - but would NEVER DREAM of hurting someone else.

Though if I had a beater, last-minute mergers would be a bit more challenged… :slight_smile:

I have a co-worker who was pulled out of his car & beaten up by because the guy thought he (co-worker) had flipped him off.

The assailant was a Marine & not only got a civilian trial, but a court-martial as well, I think (I hope!)

And people wonder why I drive with the doors locked…

Were these three people that got arrested drunk or on something? I have gotten angry behind the wheel before, but had I even thought of doing something stupid like following a person that cut me off or whatever, I should hope a passenger in my car would act as a voice of reason. I can’t believe not one, but three people would act so irresponsibly. What is this world coming to?

I’m very glad your brother is ok. Thank god he wasn’t hurt and they caught the crazy assholes that did that to him.

Once again, I haven’t actually talked to Adam yet. But I did talk to my dad, who talked to Adam. Adam came to an intersection. In the middle of the intersection was a car. The light was green and the car wasn’t moving. Adam proceeded to move around them. They went after him. Harmless. Not even stupid, if you ask me (and I guess you kind of did).

And, excuse me, but I do think my “warning” is completely necessary. You can be sane and still be stupid.

Pretty scary stuff. Hope Adam is doing okay and you are able to talk to him soon. You are so right. Sometimes it does take bad things to remind us, but its great you now have the chance.

Take Care

I didn’t mean to imply that your brother was stupid. I hope you didn’t take it that way. It occurred to me later that what I should have said was “did something to piss someone off in traffic…”

Seems to me like his attackers were just pissed off in general. Probably have previous records for this type of behavior.

At any rate, hope Adam is OK emotionally after this.

I know this would never happen, but I’d love for someone to come into the thread and post a pro-road rage response. I just don’t get it. I see plenty of stuff on the road that annoys me, but at what point do you decide that the perpetrator must pay in blood? How do you justify that response? In another thread I mentioned that in my youth I keyed the car of a person who had parked like a jerk, and felt bad about it afterwards. I can’t imagine physically assaulting the person, but that may be just because I’m not much of a fighter.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I often feel like we’re in an era where we’ve gone beyond simply not caring about our fellow men and into being openly hostile towards them all the time. The growing mindset seems to be “I should be able to do whatever I want, screw anyone who doesn’t like it, but god help those who annoy me.” In other words - I’m free to piss off whoever I want, but no one should dare to piss off me. It’s a culture of bullies, of Truth Through Power. I see it reflected on a scale ranging from this - traffic violations - to foreign relations. Except that I personally feel it scaled from the top down. That is, if it’s okay for Presidents and CEOs to behave in this manner, surely it’s okay for J. Random Littleguy.

My wife was once followed for miles by a road rager. She had pissed him off somehow, so he began getting in front of her and cutting her off. She exited the freeway and still he followed. She led him directly to my place of employment (she was coming to pick me up anyway), where he decided he had somewhere else to be after seeing a parking lot full of people. I still wonder what would have happened had she not had somewhere safe to go.

I hope your brother is fine, he has to be feeling a bit shaky.

In a way, I guess I understand rages to a degree. It seems everyone is so inconsiderate on the road these days. I even had to stop driving myself for a month, after getting into a confrontation with another driver (nothing physical, but it was a close thing), and I decided then to try to be more relaxed on the road. I hope others who see the same in themselves will try to change.

In my neck of the woods we have lots of street racing. Souped-up cars screaming through city streets at 150 kph or more-- that’s three times the speed limit.

Every so often police or community groups hold public hearings to discuss “What can be done” and at the last one some street racers came out to talk.

They cheered each other on whenever one went to the microphone and said stuff like “It doesn’t matter what you do, I will continue to race. I have a need for speed and if you don’t give me a racetrack, I will race on the streets. I know people die, and I know 3 people died racing this weekend. I don’t care.”

Short of giving people psychological testing before handing out licenses, I don’t know how you can stop any kind of aberrant driving behaviour before it starts.

But confiscating their car and suspending their license for two years when caught in the act seems to be a fairly effective way of stopping people afterwards.

You need to go to Yahoo! Boards for that kind of stuff. The SDMB crowd is not a good sample for rationalization of boneheaded behavior.

Why do you think SUVs are so popular? “I don’t care if you can’t see around me, if I’m polluting the air and using up gasoline that much faster, or that I’m endangering you with my oversized behemoth, I’ll drive whatever I damn want and you better take it!”

I wish I had an answer for you but I don’t. I’m a pretty damn considerate driver but when I see intentional rudeness toward anyone I admittedly do get very steamed.

Yesterday, on the way home, two large gravel trucks blockaded both lanes of my route for several miles, creeping along side by side doing a slow buildup to 30 in a 55. They’d not separate and traffic was completely clogged behind them, probably 200 to 250 cars, with every driver going ballistic at these two asshats. They stayed cab to cab and their intent was very obvious.

Just several cars behind them, I was able at one point to swing out and around one of them and stopped in front of him before the other truck realized what was happening.

A gap between the two was created and 50 or so cars got through while I stood by the side of my car and let the truck driver know I’d be happy to discuss the situation more intimately with him.

Was that smart? No, not really. Alright, not at all. But I did at least try and take their vehicles out of the equation. Once their size advantage was neutralized, they suddendly lost their desire to bully.

A driver here in Houston was killed by two ragers recently when they sideswiped him and his car was sh*tcanned by a lightpole. Both of them are now up on manslaughter charges.

I’m sorry about your brother. Keeping some mace or bear spray in the car might be a considerable option.

I don’t condone any violence but sometimes I find myself just really damn offended by the gaul of others.

I don’t actually see how that would do much good at 65mph, but okay.

I still haven’t talked to my brother, but I consider that a good thing. If he’s not at home, he’s somewhere else and if he’s somewhere else, then he’s conscious and alert and (presumably) walking. I still want to find out what it was that happened and who it was that did it. I assume he knows, being the victim and everything. Even without that though, it’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone else.

And I’m still angry enough to commit serious acts of violence (it’s not road rage - I’m in a La-Z-Boy).

I don’t want to see his car before I see him though. I’ve seen car wrecks (IRL and on, like, World’s Wildest Police Videos) where you just knew the person died, but they really walked away unharmed. I don’t want to get panicked like that.

Or a cel-phone. “Hello, 911? Someone’s trying to kill me!”

Absolutely Jeff, or a cell phone.

“When the cars stopped, they came after it with a hammer.”

And Silver, this is more what I was suggesting the personal line of defense for.

What happens when two people walking accidentily bump into
each other?

You usually get the ‘Oops…sorry’ face.

Behind the wheel, one cannot easily see such a visual display of
apology…and disgruntlement suddenly builds.

OK, I understand SOME degree of road rage. I myself have often said after taking 90 minutes+ to drive 30 miles to home or work “It’s a good thing I don’t keep a bazooka in my car.” Of course that’s pure hyperbole, but I would like to let people know how stupid/insensitive/dangerous/rude/lousy their driving is and I find it difficult to express myself sufficiently with anything of a smaller caliber:D. Of course, when someone else gets that angry at me (it’s happened, I’m not proud of it) I like to smile and wave at them like a demented idiot, maybe it’ll cause them to have an aneurysm or something.
As for those people who think their car is so f*cking precious it needs two parking spaces, I would NEVER key them. Instead, I use the permanent marker I keep in my shirt pocket and write reversed on their windshield something like “You are an inconsiderate jerk” or leave a note that says “I just stopped someone from keying your car. Next time I won’t.” It probably doesn’t do any good, except to make me feel better.
Silver, I hope your brother is OK emotionally after this, and I hope the morons who did that get a suitably harsh punishment for their actions, such as being having to be driven everywhere by octogenarians for the next 6 months. Or maybe they can do public service, say 1000 hours as a speed bump?:stuck_out_tongue:

lieu - When they came after the car with a hammer, Adam took off. FAST. Which is good too, because the hammer would have hit him in the head after shattering his window. It smashed through the back window and shot glass into the eye of the passenger who was back there. He’s okay though. I saw them both today.

Adam is physically okay. His muscles really hurt, and he may have small tissue damage, but he has a good lawyer. The people who did this don’t have insurance. I saw his car today. It’s not nearly as bad as I had imagined and, surprisingly, it’s not totalled.

As far as his emotions go, well… He’s pissed. He’s very, very pissed.

And everyone’s out of jail, as far we know. Too bad for them I guess.

Oh, and about these people… There’s a tiny town (population: 22 - swear to God, it’s some insanely low number like that) called Quamba (KWOM-ba). These people are part of a group (a “gang” I guess… HAHAHA) called the “Quamba Mafia”. No shit, I laughed too.