What's the worst road rage you've ever experienced?

"Rainbow" (rainbeaux) 11/25/2014 at 12:16 • Filed to: None

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Recently I had my first dose of road rage against me, so I'm curious what everyone else has witnessed.

Basically, I came up to a red light wanting to turn right with two cars directly behind me. As soon as I stopped, I heard a honk (unsure where it came from) and wrongly assumed it was someone telling me that it was clear to go. The right lane WAS clear, but there was a car in my blind spot in the left lane the whole time, and I started merging until I noticed him and quickly corrected back into the right lane. And that should have been the end of it, but then the car that was behind me at the light pulled up beside me once I got over to the left lane, and she had her window down, screaming obscenities at me and flipping me off. Now, I'd be able to forgive this if it was the car I had almost side-swiped, but I did absolutely nothing to make this girl mad. I just smiled and shrugged, which only got her angrier to the point that she stopped in traffic just to stay next to me when I came up to a red arrow (she still had a green light) and yell at me some more. I never actually understood anything she said other than a few F-bombs, but it turned out that the car I nearly hit was going to the same place as me, we parked next to each other, and when we got out he asked if I had any idea what got her so mad. No, no I didn't. And I still don't.

William Byrd > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 12:22

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That chick sounds crazy.

I had a guy pull out in front of me near DC, I swerved around barely missing his compact truck, thankfully there were 2 lanes on our side. Apparently he blamed me for the near-incident and rolled down his window, extended his middle finger very high and screamed manically "DIE FUCKERRRRR" which I had a shocked face followed by hysterical laughter. Older guy, totally serious. I suppose he thought I should have, oh I don't know, just not been on the road that morning.

I have some road rage at times when people do stupid things and then expect you to help them out. Like when they are driving down that "lane that isn't a lane b/c cars are parked in it at this time of the day" and then getting stuck and starting to move over in front of you. Uh, no.

Guy this morning, when there were 2 perfectly good lanes to go straight in, decided to take his older Saab convertible into the far right turn lane, inch forward, inch forward, and then try to gun it when the light turned. My FoST was quicker out of the gate in the far left lane and he ended up behind me when it dropped to 1 lane. haha

505Turbeaux > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 12:31

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well, let's just say a lot of time has gone by, and statutes of limitations have passed, but once upon a time 505 was young and dumb, and take this not as a brag but as a lesson. We were in my friends gorgeous teal 91 16V GTI and we came up to a guy in an Acura Integra at a light, friend was driving. We had had some tequila, not enough to be out of control (I thought, he may have had more than me). Acura guy is revving his engine and talking shit. We take off, beat him to the next light. Still talking shit, beat him to the next light, but this time Acura guy is faking like he is going to hit us with his car. I see my friends face go blank with rage, and I knew I was in for something. Acura guy makes a left, my friend takes a left right after him. We are now on a side street with much less traffic, and we are on the wrong side of the road, screaming back and forth right next to him. All of a sudden our car jinks into the rear wheel arch of the Ac, causing that car to go into the guardrail. We turn around and go back, my friend wanted to beat dude's ass. Somehow I convinced him to NOT get out of the car, literally holding him by the shirt. Other guy is scared to shit, he sees what I am trying to do, gets in his car and hauls ass. Day passes, I call my friend to make sure he got home ok after dropping me off and almost kicking MY ass, he is profusely thankful for dealing with him. I was pretty sure Acura dude was no license and insurance, but I let him sweat his ass off about the dent in his front fender and the possibility of arrest. Dude stopped drinking right then and there. That is the worst road rage I have seen

Rainbow > William Byrd 11/25/2014 at 12:31

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Yeah, I get a bit pissed when people do that sort of stuff, too. The worst is queue-cutting, especially if they drive on the shoulder. I flip them off and wave them straight on, because even if it was an honest mistake, you don't block traffic to merge into a lane that has no space. You suck it up and take the next exit. Of course, they almost never actually give up, and usually they'll end up behind me (or even a few cars ahead) because someone else is an enabler.

HammerheadFistpunch > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 12:32

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I got pretty riled up last year. I was in the middle lane and moved over into the left lane, a car that was a far way off sped up to my rear bumper and got within a few inches. I was about 2 car lengths from the car in front of me and could go no faster due to traffic. This guy in an early 90s nissan sedan was all over my butt acting like I had cut him off or something. When traffic cleared a little he bolted around me on the right, then cut in front of me (keeping in mind i was still keeping only like a 2 car gap) and slammed on his brakes and flipped me off. I came THIS close to not attempting to slow down. I was in a damn land cruiser vs his little Nissan would have been cat food. about 2 inches from hitting him I slowed down. I never wanted to plow someone off the road in my whole life.

scoob > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 12:34

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I only had one but it wasn't really rage.

I was on a 2 lane road coming up to a green light at an intersection. I was on the right lane and there was a car in the left lane. I noticed that car was inching closer and closer into my lane while that car's rear right wheel was basically 1 or 2 feet away from my front left wheel, so I honked. That driver was trying to push their way into my lane to make a right turn, without signalling or even looking. I held the horn and the passenger stuck their head out of the window, cursed at me and gave me the finger. Like, really? You're not entitled to cut people off because you missed your fucking turn.

area man > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 12:45

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Alright, here's the setup. Numbers correspond to the diagram below

1. I am the green line (right lane) and the asshole is the purple line (left lane). It's a Saturday night in a small New England downtown, with streets that don't make the most sense. Anyway, he and I are waiting at the light on a one way two-lane road, at an intersection with another one way two-lane road. Both of us are going to take right turns, which is allowed.

2. We get the light and proceed with our turns at basically the same time. I should note we are both in midsize sedans, and the road is pretty wide at this point (diagram not to scale). But as I'm making the turn, I notice there's a car illegally parked right around the corner which had previously been obscured by a group of pedestrians. So I have to cut the turn wider than expected, and my left tires crossed the dotted line by about a foot for maybe two seconds. But because I was on the inside of the turn, I had already gotten about a half a car length ahead of the asshole, so even if I had to veer fully into his lane there wouldn't have been a collision. Doesn't matter - he leans on his horn and and speeds up to pace me. At this point we are rounding the left hand curve and accelerating out of it at probably 30 mph.

3. Further down the road, maybe a quarter mile, we get to another red light. At this point the road has split into three lanes as it is turning into a connector road for a series of highways up ahead, and I'm in the middle lane. I haven't been looking at the asshole, still in the left lane, as he was pacing me, but when we get to the light we are trapped next to each other by cars in front and behind. At this point, the fact that I was ignoring his angry faces becomes to much and he rolls down his window and unleashes the most unhinged rant I've ever heard in my life. Lots of stuff about you fucking moron, you should be off the road and put in jail, I ought to motherfucking kill you, you think you are worth anything? you're not, you piece of shit, I will stomp you, yadda yadda yadda.

I tried to ignore it, after about thirty seconds of this I noticed the light was about to change and coolly raised my fist and extended my middle finger, still without ever looking at him. The light changed and I sped away. That last bit was kind of dumb, but I was 18.

wkiernan > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 12:54

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I had a woman do something like that to me a few years back but it actually was my fault. She was in my blind spot and I cut her off real bad at a left exit from the Interstate. If she hadn't been paying attention we'd have had two crashed cars. But wow-ee, was she ever pissed! Yelling and flipping me off and honking the horn and flashing the lights.

I guess I shouldn't complain. I live in Florida, where every moron has firearms. At least she didn't pull out a gun and start blasting away.

Takuro Spirit > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 13:04

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The reason I got my dashcam:

I was on my way to work early one morning in my truck, driving down a two lane road in the darkness of pre-dawn. As I made my turn onto another two lane dark country road, I see a car on the road far ahead with no rear lights working except the CHMSL. Why do I know it's the only one working? Because he keeps slowing and pulling to the side of the road.

On his THIRD time pulling over I am coming up on him, slowing to 30-ish in the 55MPH zone.... I pull across the road, flash my lights, and give him a couple honks. "Hey asshole, stay OFF the road if your lights aren't working while you're doing whatever it is you're doing" my actions mean, to me at least.

Not to this guy. He GUNS it, catches up to me (I'm now back to 55mph), and as we come to a stop sign a mile or so down the road I move to the right to turn, and he locks up his brakes, sliding his POS Lumina with mis-matched front fender across the nose of my truck.

This older, fat, slobby looking gentleman bounces out of the car, and hobbles over to my truck. I am in gear, waiting to unleash 255hp of 5.7L Vortec fury on his ass should he make the wrong move. He just starts screaming about people trying to kill him, running him off the road, etc, he's a paper delivery guy and his job is so dangerous, yadda yadda yadda.

"Sir. Sir. SIR. I just wanted you to be aware you have NO BRAKE LIGHTS. You're delivering papers, pulling on and off a dark unlit two lane road with NO BRAKE OR SIGNALS."

He calms down a bit, but is still going on how I tried to "kill him" and whatnot, and I explained to him how I slowed down, and crossed the centerline to give him as much room as possible since without lights I had no idea if he was stopping, or about to make a U-turn into the front of my truck.

He gets back in his car, and speeds off. I called 911 and reported him. Turns out this isn't the first time, the local cops know him well.

When I got to work I tried to find out what paper delivery service was being used that morning, so I could tell them their driver was a dangerous asshole, but no one had routes in that area. Hmm.

After all that I started looking into dashcams, in case something like that would happen again out in the middle of nowhere in the dark with a crazy asshole.

sellphones2493 > Rainbow 11/25/2014 at 18:58

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I've never really had any instances that escalated too far.

However, about a year ago, I was headed back to school on I-83 in rural PA. It's a two lane highway and it was rather busy at the time. I was following a guy in an older Suburban in the passing lane at less than 70mph (65 Speed Limit). I was assuming I was behind a massive line of cars, but I couldn't exactly see, because the Suburban was big and there wasn't exactly a good area to look ahead.

After like 15 minutes, I finally found a place that I could see what the hold up was. As it turns out, there was nobody in front of the Suburban, he was just taking his grand old time down the highway on his cellphone.

So to get him out of the passing lane, I got slightly on his ass. Not enough to be a hazard, but enough to get him to move over. I flashed my lights a few times when that didn't do the trick. Not a budge on his behalf.

Unbeknownst to me, he had a train horn installed on the old 'Burb. He hit the button.

I can't tell you that my underwear was clean for that 6+hr journey.