He’d probably been practicing. I can easily imagine an angry sicko with a desire to inflict random mayhem provoking a situation like you describe and feeling a real rush afterwards. After all, by returning the finger, you gave consent. It’s on baby!
Am I the only one whose first thought was “Well, thank all the gods that nobody was sitting in the backseat! A child could have been killed!”
Yeah? Well, I’ll be the one to think of the children for all of us.
While it’s not practice I engage in, I will defend your right to give the finger unto death (though preferably yours rather than mine). It seem a first amendment right to me.
I’m not sure how the First Amendment is all that relevant to avoiding highway mishaps. There’s a lot of expression that’s best repressed while you’re in a moving vehicle.
Well, the saying goes, ‘won’t somebody think of the children’, not ‘won’t everybody think of the children’.
We do appreciate you being designated children-thinker-of. Gives the rest of us a much needed break.
If I remember correctly, you’re Canadian (Toronto Maple Leafs for your name, right)? That would explain your attitude. You guys are just too damn nice, even when you are raging mad. In my neck of the woods, normal driving posture is with finger always extended and then only retracted if the situation calls for it.
Thank you, Nzinga. I was having difficulties formulating a proper response to the “Won’t somebody think of the (potential) children” post, though rolleyes would have been just the start.
If I had to guess, I’d say MrRage is probably pissed he missed the windshield he was aiming for. Was there anyone else in MrRage’s truck?
I’m glad you’re ok, dasmoocher, and even more glad you didn’t have any passengers.
Hindsight is 20/20. I’ve probably flipped off 20 drivers in the 6ish years I’ve been driving–I reserve it for really egregious, intentional acts of road stupidity. I’ve been flipped off (that I saw) twice. Neither me nor my victims have chucked a goddamn metal tool through each other’s windows.
Thank you. I don’t mind takin’ one for the team once in a while.
You’d be surprised – Delaware has very few roads (two or three possible routes) heading south to the Delaware and Maryland beaches, and of those few choices, Rt 1 is the fastest with no traffic lights and only a couple of toll stops. On summer and summer holiday weekends, it’s packed with nothing but cars and trucks hauling campers and beach gear on that road. So even if the OP had called it in and described the guy as driving a truck hauling jetskis, it unfortunately might not be enough to go on.
If the guy dropped off and disappeared down one of the exits (north to Dover I’m guessing he probably fled at one of the two Smyrna exits), he could have easily disappeared very quickly.
It’s a nutty road – virtually deserted when it’s not beach time or NASCAR at Dover Downs; a parking lot when it is. Looking at my calendar, I was coming up from Dover on 5 July, too (I’m not missing a rachet, though 
) and northbound was pretty heavy even into the late afternoon when I was coming home.
The problem is, the official speed limit is 65, which obviously in heavier traffic conditions one cannot do. When it’s a ‘non-beach day’ the unofficial limit seems to be between 80 and 110 – very little exaggeration there; even the police cruise along at lift-off speed. Unless you stay to the right, you’ll get run over by the maniacs.
The problems come in when the speed demons want to do 90 mph no matter what, and if there is a lot of traffic, chaos results. Summertime = a lot of stories of people flying off the road, overturning their cars, motorcycle wrecks, all along that route. There are a lot of unmarked police cars up and down 1, but you rarely see anyone pulled over unless they are egregiously weaving in and out of traffic.
That’s what you get for bucking the system, McMurphy!
Instead of giving / receiving the finger while I driving I prefer the slow, head-nodding-no-I’m-disappointed-in-you move. It’s surprisingly more effective.
And is surely not ever mistaken for the nodding of a tired or stoned driver.
Who slowly shakes their head “no” when they’re tired or stoned? Maybe vigorously…but slowly?
What a nutball. You’re lucky to walk away from that one.
If I’d been nearby I would’ve chased him down and chucked a newspaper through his (hopefully still open) window.
A Sunday paper. With coupons removed.
THAT’d show him!
Yeah, seriously. This brings up one of my most horrifying memories. When my youngest child was only a year old, some delinquent by the roadside threw a 10-lb. rock at my car from the side of the highway. Completely random, senseless violence. It smashed through the back side window where my infant son was sitting. It just missed him by inches.
What was even more chilling was to get home and find where the rock impacted inside the car. It made a hole in the back of the seat. Because my son was so small at the time, his carseat was rear-facing, and the rock impacted right in front of his face. But if he’d been a little older, in a forward-facing carseat, his head would have been exactly at ground zero. The memory still gives me nightmares… 
If you feel like you really must, return the gesture, I recommend looking directly at them and smiling broadly, while “waving” at them. Only instead of an “open hand” wave, wave with just the one finger! (You know, the “hand straight up, flex side to side at the wrist, sort of wave.”) That seems to piss 'em off way more, than if you simply, flipped 'em the “bird” without looking at them. 
If its a snap on ratchet ill give you 40 for 1/4, 50 for 3/8 and 60 for 1/2 to help defray your deductible
I didn’t get a ratchet through the window, but a similar incident happened to me today. Sir, I checked my mirror and signaled my intentions. I thought I had more than enough room to change lanes in front of you. Your response is to come up next to me on my left and swerve into my lane to try to get me to what? Swerve into the third lane of traffic on my right? Your response to an error is to try to* cause *an accident involving a third car? And with children in your backseat?
Nice.
Were you able to note the vehicle make and model?
I swear if I had the money I’d hire a private investigator and offer rewards in appropriate places for any info leading to the douche’s arrest.