I’m a pretty mellow guy. I’m not that confrontational. But this week my patience was put to the test when I was the victim of flagrant road rage. You heard me -- flagrant!
I was driving to work on Monday afternoon, which involves crossing a major Capitol Hill street without the benefit of a traffic light, so getting across requires a bit of dashing. Or maybe zipping. Anyway, I dash across and up the hill. Because I had dashed, I came up quickly behind a motorist who was moving at a normal speed. I guess he saw my car in his mirror and didn’t like me coming up on his tail. So he quickly pulled over to the right (without a signal) as if he was turning, but when I passed him he pulled back out and began following me right on my bumper – like a foot behind me. Clearly he was going to teach me a lesson about tailgating.
We drove for a few blocks that way, then we came to a stop sign. Then, just to emphasize his message, the guy deliberately bumped me! Yes . . . I was rammed! Gently, but still . . .
At this point, if I wasn’t the mellow guy I am, or if I was a body builder who was all hopped up on ‘roids, I might have stomped back to his car and dragged him through his driver’s-side window by his skinny neck. But since this was happening at almost the exact spot where the Critical Mass cyclists had their run-in with a guy in a car a couple of weeks ago, and because these days you never know if someone’s packing heat, I decided to stay calm, and I called 911. Then I got out and walked over to him while I was discussing the incident with the dispatcher and giving her the guy’s license plate number. The driver was maybe 25, kind of slight – I guess I could have taken him after all! – and he was LIVID that I had actually called the police on him. “Are you kidding me?” (exaggerated fake laugh) “You called the cops on me? For a little tap?” (more fake laughter) “Is this what happens when you get old? You get frightened?”
“Were you trying to teach me a lesson?” I asked.
“Do you think you deserved a lesson?” he asked.
“Are you a cop?” I asked. “Is it your job to teach me a lesson?”
And then, while the 911 dispatcher asked me a few more questions, the guy DROVE AWAY!!! He intentionally bumped me, then left the scene! All of I sudden this was turning into an episode of “Cops!”
The dispatcher took the info about which way the guy was headed and told me to sit tight and wait for an officer to arrive.
And here’s where I kind of wimped out. I waited for about 15 minutes, but I was about to be late for work. And there wasn’t any damage to my car. So I called the police back and told them to cancel the squad car.
When I talked about this on the air, some listeners suggested I should ‘fess up and admit that I was just as much to blame as the other guy, since it all started when I tailgated him. Okay, I’ll take responsibility for my part. But come on, isn’t intentionally hitting someone and then leaving the scene just a little bit worse than a tiny bit of tailgating?
I remembered a song that conveys all the intense feelings of this road rage incident – it’s “Blow ‘Em Away” by Northwest fave David Wilcox. It’s not very politically correct. Okay, it’s very politically INcorrect., but when I played it, people told me they liked it. Check it out!
