Road Rage Incident

[raptor]

As road rage goes, it was not worth mentioning but it did provoke a lecture by my significnat other. My wife and I were driving in the CBD (in the right lane) when someone took profane exception to a bumber sticker on my car. I know it was this since the profanity was directed at the bumber sticker. They were next to me and yelling. No weapons just verbal. No big deal. They speeded up and got ahead of me. Then I got nervous because I was afraid they may pull in front of me and slam on the breaks. This is not uncommon in this area they get an insurance claim and hassle people they do not like.

Reflexily I changed lanes to the far lesft lane and accellerated. I have a large sedan (with a lot of horsepower) that does 0 to 60 in less time than many sports cars. I passed the folks with a full lane between us and got on an on ramp we were heading to anyway. I simply acclerated away. No big deal. I was not perturbed but I did not want to be around them and decided that distance was the best answer to the matter.

Then I got the lecture about driving aggressively and how I made the situation worse by passing them and using my car as a weapon. I was told I cannot drive like that and if I do not want people cursing me I should not drive the vehicle and should not have a bumper sticker that makes some people mad. (I do agree I am breaking my rule about being gray with the bumper sticker and car but tough. ).

I was told I should have just ignored them, slowed down and let them get ahead of me and give them plenty of distance. My logic is that a vehicle behind me is much less dangerous than one in front of me. I did not have to pass them closely and the lane change was neccessary anyway to get on the ramp.

I am not looking for kudos just an opinion on whether or not you would prefer to have such a car in front of you or behind you. No you cannot shoot them nor can you do anything else but keep driving and ignore them and hope they have no malevolent intentions or avoid them and accelerate away.

[Regular Guy]

I prefer a car behind me. As a defensive driving tactic you can hit the brakes and hopefully take out their radiator. As far as accelerating out of the area, cool too. My Xterra is not fast however I can go places a car cannot. Later or tomorrow I'll post my road rage incidence that devolved into a two vs three fight with weapons. Not fun.

[deMaccusweil]

I would have done the same thing, but a secondary motive in my mind would have been the 'mindset'. It is important to be confident in yourself and not feel like a victim, and sometimes you need to reinforce this not to others but to yourself. The scenario you describe seemed like a harmless way of resolving the situation and restoring the balance of that mindset. You did not put anyone at risk, you took charge and solved the problem.

[sigboy40]

I know this is going to come as a surprise to most people, but I have been on both sides of this as well.

Age and experience has taught me that my best option (other then avoiding the threat) is to get away from it as quickly as possible. I once chased a guy in a Civic who flipped me off. I chased him down I-10 at midnight for about twenty miles. I was driving a suped up Jeep Cherokee with more horse power then I could be responsible with. He also tried the get in front of him and hit the brakes trick. I was really upset, and almost ran him into a guard rail because of it. Not my brightest move ever. Now that age, and some occasional wisdom has creeped in. I do exactly what Rator did when confronted with road rage, I accelerate and leave it behind me. And yes, my wife gets upset as well. On the freeway you dont have the luxury of taking the next turn and escaping that way. Also any threat ahead of you can be setting an ambush or trap that would lead to even worse problems then a simple rear end accident.

Morale of the story? Avoid confrontation, but dont give up the tactical high ground to do it.

[Str8Shooter]

......I do exactly what Rator did when confronted with road rage, I accelerate and leave it behind me. And yes, my wife gets upset as well. On the freeway you dont have the luxury of taking the next turn and escaping that way. Also any threat ahead of you can be setting an ambush or trap that would lead to even worse problems then a simple rear end accident.

Morale of the story? Avoid confrontation, but dont give up the tactical high ground to do it.

I agree. Now that I have kids I avoid road confrontations like the plague. All of my vehicles have enough horse power to pull away from a confrontation.

You did leave out one important piece of information though. What's the bumper sticker say?????

[hatchtrikk]

I would have done exactly the same thing. I think having the aggressor behind you puts the 'tactical' advantage in your hands. That's how you control the situation. If I can't exit, I'll duck and weave a little to put some distance between us, then take the next exit just as you did.

I don't understand road ragers anymore. What if you were having a Falling Down kind of day with nothing to lose?

[raptor]

What the bumper sticker said is not relevant suffice to say some people found it offensive enough to yell about it. some people take sports seriously.

[bae]

I guess I'd work out my issues with my wife if she treated me like that.

[bae]

I am not looking for kudos just an opinion on whether or not you would prefer to have such a car in front of you or behind you. No you cannot shoot them nor can you do anything else but keep driving and ignore them and hope they have no malevolent intentions or avoid them and accelerate away.

"It depends".

I often drive a car that can hit nearly 200mph, and is a darned good track car. And I've had all sorts of training driving fast, and avoiding problems. And sometimes I drive a truck that goes 0->60 in 18 seconds, has a top speed of 75 mph, and weighs 9000 pounds...

So it would depend on my read of the circumstances, and the road conditions, and what my plan for continued evasion is. I could easily blow off most vehicles in a heartbeat, but am I willing to substantially exceed the speed limit to do so, and for how long to make my getaway? High speed excursions on public roads are dangerous to yourself and others, so you have to weigh the threat against the risk.

Do I know the area well enough to bail out and lose someone on side roads? Do I have other assets in the area? Am I in immediate danger? Would I be better off to slow way down and let him pull ahead, or am I in such danger that I need to put him off the road? Are there multiple vehicles threatening me, or a roadblack situation, or ...

Have I upset any Bad Guys who are hunting me? Am I in a kidnapping-prone area?

Etc etc.

Too many variables for a single answer.

Learn driving skills and awareness, and drive a suitable vehicle, and do what you must.

[Mister Dark]

What the bumper sticker said is not relevant suffice to say some people found it offensive enough to yell about it. some people take sports seriously.

Patriots fan, huh?

I know this is going to come as a surprise to most people, but I have been on both sides of this as well.

This has me laughing. Out loud.



But on a serious note, situations like this do occur more and more often it seems. If you feel threatened by another driver, get out of that situation. By whatever means available. If you can take the next ramp, do it. If you can simply slow down and let traffic carry them away, do it. And if the other driver continues to harass, get the police on the phone ASAP. Whether you are able to handle the situation or not, the call is timestamped, so you will have a greater chance of having the law on your side no matter what happens.

[duodecima]

Maybe it's a girl thing - in the situation described I would have favored a slow waaay down, give them a lot of distance, and get off the highway. The energy (and therefore damage) when things go wrong at higher speed increases as the square of the velocity. These were chance-met idiots, the ambush thing seems less likely in this situation. Ahead of me also means, if they get off at the next exit, I don't have to and they've lost me. (Another girl thing, prob'ly, I've taken some crazy routes and pit stops to make sure a car wasn't following me.)

Having said that, what you did sounds reasonable too - with 2 caveats: excessive(> 80-90 mph) speed or enough traffic that you're changing lanes with very little space between cars would have tripped my safety alarms, and triggered a discussion with my husband. (Neither one of us likes lectures much, we "discuss" things to death instead )

[raptor]

I guess I'd work out my issues with my wife if she treated me like that.

My wife has been my friend and partner for decades. I value her companionship and candid input. I did not mean for the post to come off as being hen pecked. The sole intent of the post is to ask the question is whether passing the risk to get them behind you is preferable vs. slowing down.

Obviously the traffic and circumstances will dictate a lot of the response. However, my tendency is put the risk behind me and I am wondering if in fact this could exacerbate the situation. I could see where it could in some situations.

[DannusMaximus]

I was told I should have just ignored them, slowed down and let them get ahead of me and give them plenty of distance.

Concur with your better half.

If you slow down and give the jerk every opportunity to drive away, and he/she STILL makes it a point to slow down along with you and confront you, that gives you a very valuable insight into the potential seriousness of the situation. I would almost expect an irate person to give chase if I accelerated away from them - - that's a fairly large 'fuck you, little man' psychologically to that other person. To basically submit by decelerating? Maybe not macho, maybe not gratifying to our lizard brain, but it would take a very dangerous road rager to continue to pursue a person who is passively trying to disengage by slowing down.

So, yeah, I think you could have escalated the situation by accelerating away. I run into the occasional road rager, but have always been able to disengage by simply getting out of their way and ignoring them or giving an apologetic shrug or wave if I did something dumb like pull in front of them accidentally. I questions the mental health of a person who would seriously confront somebody over a bumper sticker. Best not to antagonize them further.

Of course, if you're decelerating and trying to passively get away and that person is STILL trying to confront you, well, that's why we carry cell phones and methods of self-defense, right?

[RickOShea]

Road ragers are crazy merderferders. You can never know what actually set them off or what their motivations are. There seems to be dozens of "wrong solutions" and almost no "proper solutions" with these types of incidents.

I say, whatever gets the Raptor family to their destination safe and sound, and doesn't bring any harm or grief to any innocent passers-by, is the proper solution.

[sigboy40]

I know this is going to come as a surprise to most people, but I have been on both sides of this as well.

This has me laughing. Out loud.

Mission Accomplished.

[Kevin108]

I handle road ragers the same way I would a pedestrian attacker - I want them in front of me where I can see them and react accordingly, not behind me.

[Jeriah]

In general, most drivers have a hard time realizing that 99% of the time, the accelerator is not the answer. If you want to merge into a lane, most people floor it and try to merge into an opening, however small, ahead of them, totally ignoring an opening behind them. It reads, to me, as silly small-dick aggression. When I want to merge into a lane, I put my turn signal on, then take my foot off the gas, and wait for an opening to appear. I gradually slow, not using the brake but just losing speed because my foot is off the gas, and an opening inevitably shows up. I feel that I am much safer doing this than I would be if I used a lot of gas and insisted on merging in front of more cars.

I would advocate a similar policy if someone was being a dick about my right to free speech via my bumper stickers (which are confusing, as they include both NRA, Amnesty International, and Nature Conservancy). If someone is yelling shit or cutting me off or whatever, I just take my foot off the gas and let them blow on by.

I'm not judging you for doing differently, just saying that this is what I feel safest doing. Oh, and legally, I feel that it makes me appear to be the safer, saner driver, which can only be to the good. If they're in front of me, I can't rear end them if I slow down and they don't.

In general, life policy: win by doing less. Disarm your opponent with kindness. If someone calls you an asshole, tell them you like their hair. If someone punches you, smile and say "That ticked." You'll look like a saint and they'll feel, and look, like the dick they are. (My two cents, adjust for circumstances, and of course, if someone poses an actual threat to your life, send 'em to the boneyard without hesitation.)

[Shmerlin]

We take calls like this all the time at our Comcenter.

Our standard response is
"Was there any actual physical contact between the vehicles"
"Do you have the Tag number?"

After that it consists mostly of slow down a bit, go about 5 miles under the speed limit in the right most lane of travel. Then we find out if the person is still following you or if they have gone on their merry way. It's amazing how fast the situation can be resolved by going a bit slower than normal.

Now depending on the situation we're going to try and get you off at the next exit and we'll tell you to NOT use your turn signal so if the person is infront of you or behind you they won't know what you're doing till you do it.

If they don't follow you off the exit, then you're good. We'll BOLO for the vehicle, document the call (this is where getting a tag number is important, however if you didn't get it PLEASE DON'T chase them down to find out what it was) tell you to get some gas or a bite of food or chill for a few minutes to maintain the seperation distance and then go about your way. Then we'll tell you that if you see this vehicle again, and they start bothering you again to go ahead and call us back.

If the person did follow you off, then ,depending on your location, we'll have you get back on the interstate headed in the opposite dirrection. Most people are not going to go really out of their way to follow you if you do this. Again if they don't follow you, we will BOLO the vehicle, doc the call, and tell you to go ahead and loop back around at the next exit to continue in the dirrection you were headed the first time. Just like last time, we'll tell you that if you see this vehicle again, and they start bothering you again to go ahead and call us back.

Now, if we've done all this and they are still following you/bothering you then we're gonna vector units to you at a higher priority because now you, if you've followed our instructions, have tried to de-escalate the situation 3 times and the other person isn't getting the hint.

In every case though, we BOLO for the vehicle on air to our avalible units, document the incident into our CAD and try to make sure you get to where you're going safely.

[TacAir]

Glad to hear you finished your trip w/o further trouble.

I don't even honk my horn in traffic anymore. Too many crazies with short fuses. The economy here is shrinking faster than a cheap party balloon, the last thing I need to do is set off a potential end-of-the-roader.

But ya, slowing down and having the cell phone at hand is the good call.

BTW - I wish I could afford a powerful sedan that could go fast.

[sigboy40]

We take calls like this all the time at our Comcenter.

Our standard response is
"Was there any actual physical contact between the vehicles"
"Do you have the Tag number?"

After that it consists mostly of slow down a bit, go about 5 miles under the speed limit in the right most lane of travel. Then we find out if the person is still following you or if they have gone on their merry way. It's amazing how fast the situation can be resolved by going a bit slower than normal.

Now depending on the situation we're going to try and get you off at the next exit and we'll tell you to NOT use your turn signal so if the person is infront of you or behind you they won't know what you're doing till you do it.

If they don't follow you off the exit, then you're good. We'll BOLO for the vehicle, document the call (this is where getting a tag number is important, however if you didn't get it PLEASE DON'T chase them down to find out what it was) tell you to get some gas or a bite of food or chill for a few minutes to maintain the seperation distance and then go about your way. Then we'll tell you that if you see this vehicle again, and they start bothering you again to go ahead and call us back.

If the person did follow you off, then ,depending on your location, we'll have you get back on the interstate headed in the opposite dirrection. Most people are not going to go really out of their way to follow you if you do this. Again if they don't follow you, we will BOLO the vehicle, doc the call, and tell you to go ahead and loop back around at the next exit to continue in the dirrection you were headed the first time. Just like last time, we'll tell you that if you see this vehicle again, and they start bothering you again to go ahead and call us back.

Now, if we've done all this and they are still following you/bothering you then we're gonna vector units to you at a higher priority because now you, if you've followed our instructions, have tried to de-escalate the situation 3 times and the other person isn't getting the hint.

In every case though, we BOLO for the vehicle on air to our avalible units, document the incident into our CAD and try to make sure you get to where you're going safely.

When seconds count, help is minutes away.

Your policy does a very good job of making sure that all the steps of the crime are documented for later prosecution. It does nothing to protect the person in the immediate situation. There is valid points through this whole thread, Jeriah is correct that sometimes its best to slow down and take the opening in traffic. But in the OP, we are responding to an immediate threat, and I still dont think its in my advantage to slow down and let them go ahead of me.

[ais4122]

I would want the bad guy in front of me. That way I could easily keep an eye on them without using my rearview mirror and repeatedly taking my eyes off the road. I can also get a better view to write down their license plate number, which would be my first priority. If the bad guy is in front of me, I could always turn off and he would then have to turn around if he wanted to pursue me, that would make it easy to ditch him. If he was to slow down, I would also slow down. The problem with running past the bad guy is you are a risk of him swerving at you, possibly colliding with you. I have had past experience where the lead bad guy pulled over. I also pulled over at a distance from him, and put on my highbeams, blinding him in the dark. That tactical advantage sent him speeding off. Passing the guy may be taken as an aggressive move on your part. If he speeds up to catch you, well, vehicle pursuits usually end up with someone crashing into something. I would avoid that at all cost. Similiar to avoiding a drunk drriver on the road, I would not pass him.

[DementedDigital]

I'm surprised by how many high-horsepower cars people drive here. My daily driver is a 198 MPH car too. (We should start a ZS car club.)

With that said (and even with the horsepower), I'd probably slow down. I prefer to keep idiots in my frontal vision rather than behind me. There's nowhere on the road to safely let the horses run, anyway. Sure, an occasional 100 MPH rip onto the highway with no one else around is fun, but in traffic with some angry half-wit nearby? Nah.

I'd hate to cause an accident trying to get away from some meat-head. If I'm going to cause damage in this situation, it's going to be to a very targeted area, and with a smaller projectile than a car.

[raptor]

Thanks for the good responses.

[Browning 35]

.... just an opinion on whether or not you would prefer to have such a car in front of you or behind you. No you cannot shoot them nor can you do anything else but keep driving and ignore them and hope they have no malevolent intentions or avoid them and accelerate away.

Behind me

If they're behind you, if you're accelerating away from them and still have some power to spare IMO it's best to have them behind you.

• If they're in front they can slam on the brakes (causing you to rear end them or to swerve violently and perhaps crash into someone else in an attempt to avoid them).
• They can slow down and throw something at your car or open fire (people have been shot for less).
• Or traffic could slow down trapping you into a physical confrontation with them getting out of their car so that they can smash in your window and try to drag you out.

IMO trouble on the road is best left in your rear-view mirror.

If it was in person I prefer trouble where I can face it, but thats how you avoid trouble in traffic (you step on the gas and get ahead of them).