A little incident in traffic today made me think...

Z

Zombieoutfitters

Joined
Apr 13, 2009
Messages
329
Likes
44
Location
North Shore MA
Feedback: 5 / 0 / 0
So I'm on a detour b/c 128 was backed up...I know shocker!

I'm sitting at a red light, first in line. No one behind me. I hear a horn toot and look around thinking little of it.

Then I see in the other lane of traffic across the intersection is a pickup truck. Some jacked dude gets out of the pickup and walks to the car behind him.

I then realize what the horn was, and now the way this dude is walking it's obvious he has a problem being beeped at. I figured "here we go, someone is going to get pulled from their car and messed up."

I noticed the light was green, and started to go. I was about to drive by the "incident" so I took it slow.

By the time I got mid-intersection the jacked dude said what he had to say and was walking back to his truck. About the time I was passing the pissed off idiot I noticed the guy he was yelling at could have been my grandpa...so I told the guy what I thought as I rolled through. He didn't even notice b/c he was still calling Wilford Brimley a "shithead". Poor grandpa was frozen at his steering wheel, window down staring straight ahead.

So that got me thinking about potential escalation scenarios and my mind was racing on what I could have / would have done. Such as what if this idiot got out with a bat / gun / tire iron? What if he just pulled the old guy out and starting pummeling him? What if I drove by and the guy was still relentlessly yelling through the window and reaching through to ruff up the guys collar and it was an older man or woman he was abusing?

What this guy did was certainly illegal and STUPID - blocking someone in against their will and then verbally assaulting them...but definitely no cause for action. Had that been me he was walking toward I would have been gun in hand and holding out of sight.

Got me thinking - and I thought yall might appreciate the chance to think as well.

Now I'm not going to let some juiced up idiot "scare" me from driving the way I want. But always remember...things can happen at any time...even in traffic before you had your morning coffee.

TIP: Stop your car while you can still see the tires of the car in front of you over your hood and you will almost ALWAYS have room to pull away. Even if you have to take out a mailbox to do it.
 
As many sheep in here will tell you "Not your fight, you might lose your LTC."

However I will tell you if the jacked dude was beating up an old man take him down which ever means is fastest and hardest.
 
Zombieoutfitters said:
About the time I was passing the pissed off idiot I noticed the guy he was yelling at could have been my grandpa...so I told the guy what I thought as I rolled through. He didn't even notice b/c he was still calling Wilford Brimley a "shithead".
Click to expand...
Don't do that. That might have turned his ire against you. You really don't want to get involved in a road rage incident.

If you see that sort of thing, pull over to the side, get out your cell phone, dial 911, hopefully with a license plate number of the offender.
 
derek said:
As many sheep in here will tell you "Not your fight, you might lose your LTC."

However I will tell you if the jacked dude was beating up an old man take him down which ever means is fastest and hardest.
Click to expand...

This. Save Wilfred Brimley if it had gone that way. There is still right and wrong.
 
derek said:
As many sheep in here will tell you "Not your fight, you might lose your LTC."

However I will tell you if the jacked dude was beating up an old man take him down which ever means is fastest and hardest.
Click to expand...

+1

I also do not take kindly to being restricted in my ability to come and go by some douche. He might get hurt and it won't necessarily be by a bullet.

Not only do I drive a fairly heavy vehicle with lots of torque, high clearance (so he fits under), and it has an old school steel bumper directly bolted to the frame, I also keep a small can of 10% OC and a tire thumper within easy reach.
 
I've seen that happen a few times. Anyone who would assault an older person deserves whatever comes their way.
To the OP; One thing you could still do would be a quick call to the local PD. OTOH If it had gotten physical it would have put you in a really tough place but hopefully you, or any of us, would do the right thing and find a way to stop the violence.

One time I saw this young kid get out of his car at a light. He was angry at the guy in front of him. He runs up to the guys door yelling and screaming. The guy being yelled at steps out of his car and he's this behemoth that stands about 6'7". The 'angry' guy just went back to his car. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen.
 
Zombieoutfitters said:
S
TIP: Stop your car while you can still see the tires of the car in front of you over your hood and you will almost ALWAYS have room to pull away. Even if you have to take out a mailbox to do it.
Click to expand...

If a person is serious about personal safety then this type of thinking should be constant until it's subconscious in your life. I do this particular bit even in drive thru's.

Sometimes it's not just distance but also position in lane; more left or right so I could move out from where I am.
 
Not having seen the incident, it's hard for me to comment.

Could have been that the old man was being an impatient and inconsiderate a$$hole. The type that literally honks the millisecond the light turns green. I've had people honk at me as I was releasing the clutch and moving forward. They actually honked at me as I was moving through the intersection.

Could have been that the big guy was distracted by talking on his phone and didn't see the light. The honk could have been the proverbial "straw that broke the camels back".

Not knowing the events leading up to the encounter makes it difficult to intervene. If you feel you must take action; stop, observe, and then intervene if necessary (if things get physical).


I try to remind myself that the majority of drivers I will encounter on a daily basis are reactionary, or offensive drivers rather than defensive. They simply don't anticipate what can happen based on what they observe.

I was on a 4 lane road on Sunday, approaching a rotary. The left and right lanes both enter the rotary (not one of those cases where only the left lane enters and the right lane exits to the right). I am in the right lane. A lady in an SUV is hugging hugging the left rear corner of my vehicle. We are approaching the rotary. I tap the brakes to show I am yielding to any traffic currently in the rotary (none at the time) I then hit my left blinker to show I am entering the rotary (instead of going straight/bearing right and exiting). Knowing that she is directly behind me and on my corner, I make extra effort to stay in the right lane of the 2 lane rotary.

This lady loses her mind and lays on the horn for a solid 5 seconds. Then flies by me with a 1 finger solute.

If she had forced me to the side of the road and started yelling at me, who's side would you have taken as the passer-by?
 
JasonG said:
Sometimes it's not just distance but also position in lane; more left or right so I could move out from where I am.
Click to expand...

I always keep enough distance to make an escape, something my parent's taught me long ago. I also had a friend that got blocked in between two cars and robbed.
 
Realtor MA said:
I've seen that happen a few times. Anyone who would assault an older person deserves whatever comes their way.
Click to expand...

+1, I remember a few years back one of my elderly (he was about 70 at the time) uncles told me a story of how he, my aunt and another aunt & uncle of mine (all same ages) were on their way to dinner one evening down the Cape and some jackass got out of his truck in front of them at a stop sign and started smashing the hood of his car with a golf club...for reasons unbeknownst to them. The guy ended up just getting back in his truck and driving off. I can imagine how terrified they probably were.

Realtor MA said:
One time I saw this young kid get out of his car at a light. He was angry at the guy in front of him. He runs up to the guys door yelling and screaming. The guy being yelled at steps out of his car and he's this behemoth that stands about 6'7". The 'angry' guy just went back to his car. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen.
Click to expand...

Kinda like that scene in Police Academy where Hightower is learning to drive and rear-ends some unlucky dude that gets out & starts yelling at him till he see's the size of him wedged in the car? LOL [rofl]

JasonG said:
If a person is serious about personal safety then this type of thinking should be constant until it's subconscious in your life. I do this particular bit even in drive thru's.

Sometimes it's not just distance but also position in lane; more left or right so I could move out from where I am.
Click to expand...

BIG +1! I always leave room enough to get outta dodge with as little damage to my vehicle as possible, if something starts to go wrong. Definitely a must in drive-through's, especially after the Witching Hour has come...seen plenty of late night BS to attest to the usefulness of that tactic.

Many moons ago, some friends and I were at a club downtown that had a multi story parking garage accross the street that always jammed up with traffic after 0200 when the club closed. So, we're sitting stopped in line waiting to get out. We hear two car loads of people yapping at each other, don't know who or what started the arguement. It ended with the guys in the car in the rear getting out and smashing all the windows out of the car in front with crobars...luckily for the people in the first car that was the end of it, BPD came running up the ramp and stopped it.
 
derek said:
As many sheep in here will tell you "Not your fight, you might lose your LTC."

However I will tell you if the jacked dude was beating up an old man take him down which ever means is fastest and hardest.
Click to expand...

+1. Sometimes, there's Just Us.
 
Jose said:
When the victim is a helpless old man, there is no time to wait for the cops.
Click to expand...
In the incident described Zombie, nothing was going on other than yelling. The perp had not hit anyone. No one is immediate danger. That might have changed quickly, but at that point, the best thing to do was to call the police.
 
Reminds me of an incident I had. I was in the outer of two turning lanes and had an older gentleman (I'd guess 50's) cut me off in the turn by going from the inside lane to the outside right beside me (this is not the first nor last time this has happened to me, and I have been run into the curb this way, does anyone pay attention on the inside lane in two lane turns these days?). I hit the brakes and naturally put my hand to the horn to warn them that they were making an un-signaled lane change. So after they glided into my lane, I signaled right (this was in reaction to him apparently taking offense at my audacity to use my horn and slowing down in front of me), changed lanes to the right and passed him and proceeded to the next light, which as my luck would have it was red. He pulled up behind me and proceeded to exit his vehicle and came up to my window blathering something I don't even remember, at which point I calmly proceeded to tell him how he made an illegal lane change and cut me off, and how he had no cause to be angry at all. He then turned around and went back to his vehicle, and I continued on my way.

When he came up to the car, I ensured my doors were locked and only partially opened the window to ensure some level of protection while allowing me to be clear in my communications to him.

First and hopefully only time I will ever have that happen to me. I was not carrying, but I don't believe I would have drawn concealed had I been, unless I saw some sort of weapon (which I did not, and I was watching closely as he pulled behind me, exited and came up to my vehicle).
 
EddieCoyle said:
The old guy needs to start carrying.
Click to expand...

We don't know for sure, maybe that's why it didn't progress beyond just yelling.

The way I'd say to respond in a situation like this: Respond the way you would want another bystander to respond if it was your loved one in the victim's shoes.

ETA: Route 128 is backed up? Isn't that redundent...kind of like saying that the water is wet?
 
Someone who gets that worked up about a horn is probably missing some lead supplements.

-Mike
 
Zombieoutfitters said:
By the time I got mid-intersection the jacked dude said what he had to say and was walking back to his truck. About the time I was passing the pissed off idiot I noticed the guy he was yelling at could have been my grandpa...so I told the guy what I thought as I rolled through. He didn't even notice b/c he was still calling Wilford Brimley a "shithead". Poor grandpa was frozen at his steering wheel, window down staring straight ahead.
Click to expand...

So the a-hole was walking back to his car and you felt the need to share your opinion with him?

If the old guy's getting beat up, definitely intervene to stop it, otherwise MYOFB.
 
tt3_large.jpg


tt2_large.jpg
 
IIRC a couple of years ago, in AZ I think, a young guy got pissed, pulled in front of gramps, stopped & walked back to his car. He proceeds to punch gramps in the face, and walk back to his car. Gramps calls for him to come back, young guy does, stands at drivers door asking gramps if he wants another smack!


Gramps pulls handgun, kills young man.

Gramps found not guilty
 
Palladin said:
IIRC a couple of years ago, in AZ I think, a young guy got pissed, pulled in front of gramps, stopped & walked back to his car. He proceeds to punch gramps in the face, and walk back to his car. Gramps calls for him to come back, young guy does, stands at drivers door asking gramps if he wants another smack!


Gramps pulls handgun, kills young man.

Gramps found not guilty
Click to expand...

He needed killin'
 
Dont underestimate the 60-80 crowd, if this was my father and things got violent we would be reading about a dead juice bag., but Fla laws are alot kinder to senior citizens. A firearm lowers your age about 50 yrs, and I would have stepped in 100 percent if he layed a hand on the old timer, not even a question.
 

Similar threads

  • Locked
the draft expanded; do you think they know a big one is coming ?
Replies
10
Views
458
drgrant
drgrant
ATF Seizing Muzzle Brakes Made By "Lethal Eye"
Replies
0
Views
438
Zappa
Zappa
Today is 6/13/24 and I still.......
Replies
17
Views
693
drgrant
drgrant
.380 was made great again (.380 Intercepter Taofledermaus)
2 3 4
Replies
113
Views
2K
pastera
pastera
Shooting, lockdowns, manhunt in Saco, ME today
2
Replies
38
Views
2K
Palladin
Palladin
Back
Top Bottom