It seems that in an area of Ohio where a large number of Amish live, boys (acutally men if you look at the age) entertain themselves by throwing tomatoes at passing motorists. They get themselves a bucket of toms, hide in the cornfields and pelt cars as they go by. The article says,
This year the prank turned deadly. A motorist who was tired of his car being hit decided to do something about it. Your average person might call the police, or throw tomatoes back at the people. Hell, I could even understand going into the fields and kicking a little ass. This guy though, so far unidentified, took things too far.
I can really understand being upset by getting hit. I can understand wanting to take matters into your own hands. I cannot fathom though, what made this guy think that the appropriate response to tomatoes was bullets.
Oh yeah, not only is it disproportionate but this guy turned around and drove back and forth in front of the Amish guys several times before stopping and firing. The proper thing to do is get out of harm’s way, roll down the window, yell “You assholes!” at the corn, and then burn rubber in case the assholes decide to come out and react disproportionately too.
Poor kid. Although it could endanger lives if somebody was scared enough to jerk the wheel or something, but I get the impression it was not a dangerous stretch of road. Still, poor kid.
It’s about time somebody put those delinquent Amish hellraisers in their place.
Seriously, though, the reaction was disproportionate. At most, he should’ve fired the shotgun into the air just to show he meant business, but the better bet would have been to call the cops or meet with a community elder.
My natural reaction is “These people outta be dragged out and shot.” They’re no different from the kids that throw rocks from overpasses onto passing cars. Cite.
But I’ll go with what World Eater said. This turd provoked it by his repeated drive-bys, when he should have gotten on the called the police, or just gone on with his life. Hopefully these punks will find another way to amuse themselves, and the driver will spend the rest of his life in jail as yet another cautionary tale about road rage.
They do if they’re in tins…
Seriously though, how fucked up do you have to be to react like that?! Wonder if there was more to this than meets the eye?
No, but if a tomato lands on the windshield it can scare and disorient the driver. This could lead them to slam on the brakes and cause a pile-up or they may jerk the wheel, lose control, and drive off the road into a hazard (ditch, pole, debris, etc.)
It doesn’t matter how harmless the object is, throwing things at moving cars is never a good thing.
Throwing objects, even soft squishy objects, at moving vehicles is stupid and potentially dangerous. People should be actively discouraged from doing so.
Shooting them, however, is going too far in the “active discouragement” line.
Just shows that a nitwit with a gun can do more damage than a nitwit with a tomato.
I don’t know if I’d go quite as far as being equal to throwing rocks, but it is definitely a dangerous thing. Like others have said, what if it were to hit your windshield, or even go through an open window and hit someone.
On second thought, maybe it is just as dangerous as rocks from overpasses.
