Vindication following an incident of ROAD RAGE

[boingo82]

Here's the novel:

On Saturday, I embarked on the 2 hr. drive from St. George to Vegas with my dad (driving) mom, boyfriend, and 9 yr old and 4 yr old brothers in my parents' 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. We were going to Vegas because my dad had signed up for the Richard Petty Experience, where participants hand over large stacks of money and then get to drive genuine Nas-cars around a genuine Nascar track at riciculous speeds.

St. George is on the border (6 miles away) of Arizona, which contains a tremendous gorge for 30 or so miles and upon exiting the gorge one finds oneself in Nevada. The Gorge has a speed limit of 55 (as opposed to 75 on the rest of the freeway) because it is steep, windy, narrow, and essentially very, very dangerous. There is no such thing as a 1 or 2-car accident in the Gorge. Any accident involves at LEAST 4 cars, some of them totaled. This is because of low visibility, and absolutely NO space to pull off the road for miles at a time.

So that's your background. This is where it gets interesting:

We were approximately 2/3 through the Gorge, and going 60 (naughty, naughty) passing a semi, which was apparently frustrating to the drivers behind us. As we passed the semi, a green Toyota T100 pulled within 2 feet of our bumper. My dad tapped the brakes, warning him off, and as he passed the semi, the Toyota zipped between us, then swerved immediately in front of us. My dad had to slam on the brakes and swerve toward the guardrail so he wouldn't clip our bumper. It was within about 6 inches of a collision. It made no sense for him to swerve, because there was no traffic in either lane for as far as we could see.

:tangent: Anyone who watches racing knows that the vehicle whose back gets hit is the one that loses control. If the Toyota HAD hit us, it would have rolled, gotten run over by the semi, and us, and caused a collision involving the 12 or so people behind us who were all too stupid to respect speed limits and had piled up in our wake. :/tangent:

But that's not what happened. We avoided the accident, and as the Toyota accelerated to 85 in front of us, we called the Highway Patrol. We reported the incident factually, and they said that they were putting out a watch for the truck.

About ten minutes later, we exited the Gorge, and 5 minutes after that passed the first exit to Mesquite, NV. We looked at the offramp as we passed, and noticed the truck pulled over on it by the NV Highway Patrol.

As we approached the next offramp, an argument ensued. I said we should exit, and backtrack, because the police would want us to sign papers. Everyone else said that if they needed us, they would call us back.

Well, about a mile past the exit, they DID call and ask us to return. Unfortunately, the next exit was not for 12 miles. So we went clear out there, turned around and joined the NV Highway patrol, and the AZ Highway patrol that had showed up since it was his jurisdiction. As they talked to us, the offender exited his truck and started to approach. We had all been expecting a teenybopper. To our surprise it was a 40-50ish big'ol fat man. :toothless:

"Get back in your vehicle, sir!" yelled the cops.

He continued to approach. "Don't I get to defend myself, if these even ARE the right people." (Yeah, we just randomly show up when we see people pulled over and sign statements against them.)

"Get back in your vehicle, sir!" they yelled again.

He kept walking.

"Sir, you get back in your vehicle, or you'll be getting in the back of MY vehicle."

Finally he got back in his truck.

We all calmly signed statements. There had been 4 adults in our vehicle, and 1 or 2 in the Toyota. The officers told us they would be charging him with reckless driving, and with endangerment. The AZ cop said that if they had been able to pick him up in AZ they would have booked him. My mother was worried that he'd follow us down the freeway and do something even dumber, but we were assured that he lived in Mesquite. So by this time, he'd been sitting on an offramp for about 1hr 15min, just a few miles from his house. Who's in a hurry now, tough guy??

I looked up the fines for Reckless Driving and Endangerment tonight, together they add up to $2400, and a possible license suspension. I feel so much better. Our knees were all shaking for hours after the incident.

The moral: Don't hesitate to report things like this.

[Moppie]

Damn, I wish the Kiwi cops reacted that quickly to idiots on the road.

The bumber on my car is still not sitting straight after i was rammed in a road rage incident. Only that was about 6mnths ago, and I still havnt heard back from the cops..........
Yet I have the rego, and a discribtion of the driver.

[Spec2 Girl]

Now that's what I call satisfaction!

[speediva]

Decent!!!

It's always good to know some idiot has to pay for his stupidity!