Road rage escalation

[RobM77]

Obviously what the Civic did was wrong, and I'm not condoning it, but there's a huge amount of speculation going on here with zero evidence. We have no idea what words were exchanged, what threats were made, or even the events leading up to what happened; without information like that, we can't pass moral judgement. I can imagine a myriad of situations with a spectrum of moral judgements favouring or condeming either driver. Yes, the OP would be well within his rights to report the Civic driver, but we can't get all high and mighty about it because we don't know what happened.

The reason I'm posting this is that a couple of times I've been at the receiving end of grossly unfair road rage where the 'road rager' has done something really stupid and then blamed it on me for simply being in the way. I also see this happen to others probably twice a week on my daily commute - often I wonder if some people are simply looking for a fight. One time my wife and I were followed after such an incident, blocked in in a car park and the crazy bloke then got out of his car and started being really threatening towards us. In that incident, I managed to move the car back and forth a few times really quickly to shift our angle in the car park space and then just about squeezed through a gap behind his car to escape. Now, I didn't mow the guy down, but when you think you're about to get your windscreen and head smashed in by some nutty idiot, I can easily see why someone may panic and do that, yes. It doesn't excuse it, but it makes you think what the story is behind an incident like the one portrayed by the OP. People don't just run other people over for no reason - the chances are something pretty significant had just happened and the van driver had been extremely threatening. We don't know that, so that's just speculation on my part, but that's the point - we don't know what happened here at all and shouldn't pass judgement or take the moral high ground.

[Freddy88FM]

Yet another thread demonstrating why I keep a tally of things I've managed to ignore that were inconsiderate and would typically result in a horn, waved hand or similar rather than getting involved in road rage.

We know nothing of the situation but seems based on what we do know that both are pretty moronic. Who gets out of their car to argue with a motorist?! And who then runs said person over as a result. Christ on a bike.

[cptsideways]

Fair do's to some extent, if your going to threaten someone driving a potential weapon expect some retaliation at some point if your not careful.

Years ago I was involved in a road rage incident, I was on the the receiving end. In the end I simply rammed the guys car off the road into a ditch damaging it in a fairly hefty way, as he had stopped to block my way to remonstrate with me, it was threatening. I contacted the police & was advised I was in the clear for damaging his car as I was being threatened. This was advice from the local plod & it went no further.

[andy-xr]

smokeey said:

Probably "I'll run you down in a minute you prick"

I think if someone's willing to get out of their car to tackle you about something, they're obviously more than a bit peeved. The best course of action is probably go, quickly. But that doesnt make it right to run the guy over

[jamoor]

The van driver won't try that again.

[Mike22233]

jamoor said:

The van driver won't try that again.

He might. Perhaps he likes to live life on the edge

[vtecyo]

Hardly ploughed into him. If he was crossing the front of the car, the civic would have been doing about 5mph.

Not acceptable, just saying.

Would everyone be saying "serves the Transit driver right" if the Civic driver rose to the aggravation, got out and knocked him out and left him in the middle of the road, then driving off? There's no reason for the Transit driver to leave his vehicle on a public highway.

It's all circumstantial. Unless there's video showing the preceding events leading up to this, we'll never know the full story.

Also, some people on this thread are morons.

[Johnnytheboy]

Freddy88FM said:

Who gets out of their car to argue with a motorist?! And who then runs said person over as a result. Christ on a bike.

Am I the only one that read that as a rhetorical question and answer?

[Martin_M]

Johnnytheboy said:

Am I the only one that read that as a rhetorical question and answer?

lol very good.

[neil1jnr]

rambo19 said:

Must admit, I would not of got involved.

I thought Rambo would be the type to save the day....

[xRIEx]

neil1jnr said:

rambo19 said:

Must admit, I would not of got involved.

I thought Rambo would be the type to save the day....

Watch First Blood again

[tomjol]

Haggleburyfinius said:

Frightening?

Stop being such a big baby.

Original.

Moonhawk said:

The mentality that it's not ok to run somebody over - but if you pick a fight, expect the person you pick on to fight back?

How is that "frightening"?

The mentality that if I exchange words with a fellow human being I am therefore "picking a fight" and can expect to be attacked with a motor vehicle?

Perhaps I'm too used to civilised people.

ETA: Probably coming across as a bit of a wet leg. Point was we don't have many facts, without those it's difficult to make any judgements, but people are happy to make assumptions and roll out the "well if you don't cause trouble in the first place..." line.

xRIEx said:

Not really, it's nothing more than an explanation of reality: by being alive you are exposed to risk; you can take actions to decrease the risk to you, or actions that increase the risk to you.

Several confusions taking place (in the thread, or perceptions in general):
- 'event occurs' confused with 'individual deserved it'
- 'how people should behave' confused with 'how people do behave'
- 'law exists' confused with 'bad things don't happen'

I tried explaining the latter to a friend of mine: just because the Murder Act makes murder illegal, it doesn't stop anyone from being murdered; it only provides a mechanism for punishing a murderer. He couldn't quite get his head round it and kept saying something along the lines of, "but they're not allowed!"


It's a similar principle that comes up many times on here, often in cycling threads:
"I have the right/priority to drive/cycle/walk here, and because I'm right I'm going to drive/cycle/walk here and if they crash into me they're in the wrong."

The reality is more likely:
"If they crash into me I'm going to be seriously injured, in huge amounts of pain or possibly killed."

'In the right/priority' is not always aligned with 'best option for personal welfare'.

All true, and you're right, some people struggle with the concept. I am very much in the "keep out of it" camp.

RobM77 said:

Obviously what the Civic did was wrong, and I'm not condoning it, but there's a huge amount of speculation going on here with zero evidence. We have no idea what words were exchanged, what threats were made, or even the events leading up to what happened; without information like that, we can't pass moral judgement. I can imagine a myriad of situations with a spectrum of moral judgements favouring or condeming either driver. Yes, the OP would be well within his rights to report the Civic driver, but we can't get all high and mighty about it because we don't know what happened.

Bingo. Too few facts, too much excitement.

Edited by tomjol on Tuesday 31st March 09:02

[xRIEx]

tomjol said:

The mentality that if I exchange words with a fellow human being I am therefore "picking a fight" and can expect to be attacked with a motor vehicle?

Perhaps I'm too used to civilised people.

Perhaps you are. The whole point of "exchanging words" or "picking a fight" with someone is you have no idea what to expect - how they perceive what you're doing or how they'll react to that perception.

tomjol said:

I am very much in the "keep out of it" camp.

The only safe way, and which precludes "exchanging words".

[RobM77]

xRIEx said:

tomjol said:

The mentality that if I exchange words with a fellow human being I am therefore "picking a fight" and can expect to be attacked with a motor vehicle?

Perhaps I'm too used to civilised people.

Perhaps you are. The whole point of "exchanging words" or "picking a fight" with someone is you have no idea what to expect - how they perceive what you're doing or how they'll react to that perception.

tomjol said:

I am very much in the "keep out of it" camp.

The only safe way, and which precludes "exchanging words".

It depends what words are exchanged surely? There's a difference between "Hello old chap, nice Civic Type R, sorry that I hit my horn there, but you surprised me moving out suddenly without looking or indicating" and "Oi, you wker, what the fk are you doing? I've got a load of concrete blocks in the back of my van and you're getting one through your windscreen in a second, and then another in your teeth.".

And as for the guy above saying to stop being such a big jesse, not all of us are used to confrontation and fights etc. If someone shouted the above at me I'd be out of there pretty damm quick!! Yes, I'd try not to run over the guy, but what if you'd just been chased and threatened for five miles previously and feared it again? Plus you were the type of person who panics maybe? I can easily see how the OP's story could unfold.

My mantra when driving is not to engage with anyone negatively at all. If someone pulls out on you quickly without indicating, turns right at a roundabout without indicating into your path, tailgates you etc, 9 times out of 10 a flash or hoot will be harmless, but there are some nutters out there who will take things a lot further with fairly mild provocation (actually a flash or a hoot is unknown provocation, that's the whole point, as a horn or flash is a binary signal without subtlety that means different things to different people), so if you do a lot of miles and understand the numbers, it's best to just never engage with anyone and stay chilled.

[xRIEx]

RobM77 said:

xRIEx said:

tomjol said:

The mentality that if I exchange words with a fellow human being I am therefore "picking a fight" and can expect to be attacked with a motor vehicle?

Perhaps I'm too used to civilised people.

Perhaps you are. The whole point of "exchanging words" or "picking a fight" with someone is you have no idea what to expect - how they perceive what you're doing or how they'll react to that perception.

tomjol said:

I am very much in the "keep out of it" camp.

The only safe way, and which precludes "exchanging words".

It depends what words are exchanged surely? There's a difference between "Hello old chap, nice Civic Type R, sorry that I hit my horn there, but you surprised me moving out suddenly without looking or indicating" and "Oi, you wker, what the fk are you doing? I've got a load of concrete blocks in the back of my van and you're getting one through your windscreen in a second, and then another in your teeth.".

I absolutely agree (and with the rest of your post as well) but I would guess (and it is only guesswork) very few people would get out of the car to say the former, they'd just go about their day; it tends to be people with the latter attitude that get out of their cars.

[RobM77]

xRIEx said:

RobM77 said:

xRIEx said:

tomjol said:

The mentality that if I exchange words with a fellow human being I am therefore "picking a fight" and can expect to be attacked with a motor vehicle?

Perhaps I'm too used to civilised people.

Perhaps you are. The whole point of "exchanging words" or "picking a fight" with someone is you have no idea what to expect - how they perceive what you're doing or how they'll react to that perception.

tomjol said:

I am very much in the "keep out of it" camp.

The only safe way, and which precludes "exchanging words".

It depends what words are exchanged surely? There's a difference between "Hello old chap, nice Civic Type R, sorry that I hit my horn there, but you surprised me moving out suddenly without looking or indicating" and "Oi, you wker, what the fk are you doing? I've got a load of concrete blocks in the back of my van and you're getting one through your windscreen in a second, and then another in your teeth.".

I absolutely agree (and with the rest of your post as well) but I would guess (and it is only guesswork) very few people would get out of the car to say the former, they'd just go about their day; it tends to be people with the latter attitude that get out of their cars.

A good point I failed to mention. It's very likely that some threatening words were being exchanged. Not always, but quite often, being an aggressive meathead goes hand in hand with being impatient or not knowing the Highway Code very well so it's also reasonably likely that the chap in the Civic had done nothing wrong at all, or something very minor. However, we don't know that of course and I still refuse to side with either party - I have a pretty low opinion of both shouting at people aggressively and running people over!

[9mm]

RobM77 said:

xRIEx said:

tomjol said:

The mentality that if I exchange words with a fellow human being I am therefore "picking a fight" and can expect to be attacked with a motor vehicle?

Perhaps I'm too used to civilised people.

Perhaps you are. The whole point of "exchanging words" or "picking a fight" with someone is you have no idea what to expect - how they perceive what you're doing or how they'll react to that perception.

tomjol said:

I am very much in the "keep out of it" camp.

The only safe way, and which precludes "exchanging words".

It depends what words are exchanged surely? There's a difference between "Hello old chap, nice Civic Type R, sorry that I hit my horn there, but you surprised me moving out suddenly without looking or indicating" and "Oi, you wker, what the fk are you doing? I've got a load of concrete blocks in the back of my van and you're getting one through your windscreen in a second, and then another in your teeth.".

And as for the guy above saying to stop being such a big jesse, not all of us are used to confrontation and fights etc. If someone shouted the above at me I'd be out of there pretty damm quick!! Yes, I'd try not to run over the guy, but what if you'd just been chased and threatened for five miles previously and feared it again? Plus you were the type of person who panics maybe? I can easily see how the OP's story could unfold.

My mantra when driving is not to engage with anyone negatively at all. If someone pulls out on you quickly without indicating, turns right at a roundabout without indicating into your path, tailgates you etc, 9 times out of 10 a flash or hoot will be harmless, but there are some nutters out there who will take things a lot further with fairly mild provocation (actually a flash or a hoot is unknown provocation, that's the whole point, as a horn or flash is a binary signal without subtlety that means different things to different people), so if you do a lot of miles and understand the numbers, it's best to just never engage with anyone and stay chilled.

Good post.

[Strawman]

RobM77 said:

so it's also reasonably likely that the chap in the Civic had done nothing wrong at all, or something very minor. However, we don't know that of course and I still refuse to side with either party - I have a pretty low opinion of both shouting at people aggressively and running people over!

But according to the OP nothing was shouted, all he heard was "wooo" at one point, so it is clear that there was no shouting going on. How have you worked out that the civic driver did nothing wrong prior to the man in the van going over to talk to him? Remember this is someone who deliberately drove at a pedestrian hard enough to throw him onto the bonnet. Pages ago someone made the point that getting out of your vehicle to talk to another motorist is a bad idea, why fifty other people feel the need to make the same point over and over again, with different imaginings about why that happened is baffling to me.

[9mm]

Strawman said:

RobM77 said:

so it's also reasonably likely that the chap in the Civic had done nothing wrong at all, or something very minor. However, we don't know that of course and I still refuse to side with either party - I have a pretty low opinion of both shouting at people aggressively and running people over!

But according to the OP nothing was shouted, all he heard was "wooo" at one point, so it is clear that there was no shouting going on. How have you worked out that the civic driver did nothing wrong prior to the man in the van going over to talk to him? Remember this is someone who deliberately drove at a pedestrian hard enough to throw him onto the bonnet. Pages ago someone made the point that getting out of your vehicle to talk to another motorist is a bad idea, why fifty other people feel the need to make the same point over and over again, with different imaginings about why that happened is baffling to me.

Probably because another fifty people feel they need to keep making the point that running over the other guy was indefensible?

[red_slr]

Did the police attend?
I reckon they will not have an AP for this.... write off!