Road Rage Conflicts

Remaining Lawful in the Heat of Another's Rage

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Today’s Lawful2Shoot? Focus:  Road Rage Conflicts. In this particular scenario, you’re driving through traffic where everyone seems to be paying more attention to something other than driving their car. You are travelling at the speed limit and all three lanes have vehicles travelling well under the speed limit and there are four or more car lengths in between every car in all three lanes. This traffic scenario provides plenty of spaces by which to safely move through the lanes and out into an open area in front of the slow congested three lanes of slow-moving vehicles.

So, you safely pass a vehicle and move back into the middle lane again with no problems. As you approach the next vehicle you move to the left lane to complete another safe pass. However, as your vehicle completely advanced by the slower vehicle and you’re about to reenter the middle lane safely, the driver of the vehicle you’ve already passed speeds up and prohibits you from completing the pass. This causes you to hit the brake because you’re approaching a slower car ahead of you. He blocked you.  

So, after the driver who blocked you continues and it’s safe to move back to the middle lane again you move behind him. He is three car lengths in front of you and all is fine, but after about five seconds he begins to slow back down forcing you to slow down ten mph. You ignore him and move to the right lane which has an open area ahead of about five car lengths and begin to pass him on the right side. He floors it again, and prohibits you from passing him a second time.

You slow down and move in back of him again, there are about three car lengths between your vehicles, and you give him a gesture that conveys, “What the heck dude?” He sees your gesture in his review mirror and responds by slamming on the brake hard. However instead of hitting your brakes you turn to the right lane to avoid his effort to obstruct you and accelerate, catching him by surprise, which allows you to easily move past him about ten car lengths. You remain in the right lane with the congested traffic in back of you. You believe there isn’t a problem anymore since he’s stuck in traffic as you increase your distance from him. But after thirty seconds or so you check your side mirror and see him coming up on you very fast.

You are now approaching a red light which has stopped traffic in all lanes. You stop in the right lane of traffic, and he stops next to you on your right side with his passenger window down and yells at you to get out of your car. You ignore him, he blows his horn, but you keep ignoring him. He gets out of the car and aggressively moves in front of your car screaming at you to get out.

There is enough space to your right side and to your front, so you turn the wheel to the right and attempt to drive up the breakdown lane in order to flee. But he jumps to the right of your vehicle and prohibits you from fleeing the scene. He begins slamming his fist into your vehicle’s hood and fender over and over, screaming for you to get out of your vehicle.

You partially open your driver’s window and yell for him to stop, as you begin to video his actions with your phone.

You’re trapped in traffic stopped at a light, as he moves towards your half-open window, so you put your window all the way up. He begins an attempt to smash open your window with his fist. The window holds true after three strikes, and he pauses as he sees you recording a video.  

What can you legally do? The following is what I have done and will do again in the future if necessary.