Does an Automobile = Deadly weapon??

[Black92LX]

I situation i was in over the summer got me thinking.


I get on the highway and upset someone because he wanted over in my lane but i was there. So i look in my rearview mirror to see him start to pass me in the shoulder. Then cut directly in front of me and slam on the brakes to 10 miles an hour from around 70. So a little baffled i try to pass him in the fast lane. he swerves at me again and won't let me pass. so i just back off and drive a little under the speed limit. hoping they will just drive on. well they slam the brakes in front of me again. so i drive a mustang so i drop into 3rd and blast pass the guy. So i put 2 cars between him and i (couldn't fit between the two). so i start to exit the highway and here he comes in the shoulder passes me and cuts his car sideways to block the exit?

I felt that my life was in danger with the actions in his automobile and tried to retreat in a couple different ways but was unable.

Would I be justified in pulling a weapon??

The story is true, though i never pulled a weapon. and another case of road rage this evening got me wondering.

 

[Chipperman]

Would you be justified in getting out of your car with gun drawn? No.
Would you be justified in getting a gun out and staying in your car with gun out of sight? Yes.

What did you do when he blocked the exit?

 

[Powderman]

Best bet...

1. You already tried to de-fuse the situation by slowing down. Didn't work. Use the best weapon available to you....

Your cell phone!

Call 911, describe the vehicle and it's actions.

2. I believe that in one of your earlier posts, you mentioned that you had just turned 21. If so, you should be eligible for CCW, depending on your state and its laws.

Make sure that your sidearm is accissible, but do not draw. Why?

If Driver Putz causes you to wreck out, your pistol will go flying.

3. Put distance between yourself and the antagonist.

4. Do not draw, show, or brandish your firearm. Do not even let the other person know you have it unless you are in a situation where you cannot drive away, and you are in fear of your life.

5. Keep the 911 operator on the phone, and describe every move you make. Remember your call is being taped.

 

[P95Carry]

Automobile=deadly weapon?? Yeah sure, potentially . even an instrument of mass murder! But in the context of firearms .... not seen in the same light ..... sometimes unfortunately.

The fact that you are armed should, ideally, make it more important that you defuze things quickly by any means. Hard to judge of course from the armchair!

Maybe ... (the wonders of 20/20 hindsight perhaps!) ..... the best might have been to put on your right turn signal and pull safely over onto the shoulder .. hoping to let him drive on ahead and ruin someone else's day! Then proceed after a pause of a minute or two.

Easy to say ... we weren't there. And yeah .... what did happen when he blocked your exit?? Seems like the chapter was not quite closed??

 

[Black92LX]

Your cell phone!

Didn't have one at the time.

What did you do when he blocked the exit?

Took the mustang offroading
but where i was could have very easily gotten the stang stuck. now if i was in the truck a different story.

2. I believe that in one of your earlier posts, you mentioned that you had just turned 21. If so, you should be eligible for CCW, depending on your state and its laws.

just asking as a hypothetical situation. i am in ohio so even if i was 21 wouldn't matter.

 

[CWL]

Never brandish! You may go to jail, permanently lose your rights to ownership or CCW.

If you did this, nothing prevents the other guy from pulling over and calling cops. You will then become the bad guy. This has happened recently to someone/or friend of this forum.

Do what you can to disengage from the other car. You may have to swallow pride and wave at him or do similiar acts to indicate that he is the "winner".

Best scenario is always the one where you get home safely.

You can always alert LEOs as to his/her behavior.

 

[timbo]

I know it must anger you when this happened, I know I would be. I think I would get to a public place or police station if possible and wait him out. If that isn't convenient enough then try your best to get where he isn't, even if it just means pulling over where you are and letting him take off.

As far as carrying goes, I'd pull over wherever I could, get out of my car and stand right there, with my gun holstered and concealed. If the guy wants a fight, let him come to you and threaten you, then draw if necessary. I'm not an expert on laws regarding carrying though, so some discretion is advised. The key here I believe is to let him be the aggressor and give him a way out. If he still threatens you then you'll need to defend yourself.

My experience has been though that most people will feel invincible in their car and feel suddenly weak when they can't use that car to their advantage. Trying to threaten anyone from cars is dangerous with too many factors available to anger people, most notably traffic, but there are numerous others.

Taking down his license plate number might be handy too. Although it's after-the-fact, alerting the police to someone that would do this might help making the streets safer for everyone. That and give you perhaps a little satisfaction if things turn out well. Just be very careful whatever you do.

 

[280PLUS]

ask ted kennedy,,,

 

[Double Naught Spy]

In many of the situations like Black92LX described, the people who feel their lives are in danger have managed to be BEHIND the person described as the aggressor. In this case, as with others I have read, the 'victims' all continue trying to proceed down the road with the aggressor and try to put distance between themselves and the aggressor by passing the aggressor who does not let them pass, blocking them.

The simplist thing to do is to pull over and stop completely. Let the aggressor toodle on down the road.

While it may not be right, fair, or reasonable, many people take huge offense to being passed and there is no way he is going to let you pass if that somehow is insulting to him, especially since he is already upset with you.

 

[Atticus]

The same thing happened to me once (with my wife and kids in the car). We were traveling late one night on I57 in Southern Illinois, when a car load of teens zoomed up on my rear at about 100 MPH, pulled in front of me, and then slammed on the brakes. What followed was exactly as you descibe. If I stopped he stopped if I tried to pass, he sped up. This went on for 15 minuted or so. He finally blocked the exit ramp and I had to drive in the grass to pass him. A few minuted later, we passed a State Trooper sitting on the shoulder of the road (writing a ticket), I flashed my headlights about 20 times (which he didn't notice), and at that point the kids disengaged. When I hit town I called the local PD and reported the incident, giving them the plate number, vehicle description, and description of the occupants (I was less than 6' from them at times and making eye contact). The local PD referred me to the County, who referred me to the SHP. I never heard a word back from anyone. My Kimber was safely stored in the trunk at the time, as required by law. Probably a good thing though - as a tired, distraught, and very angry new father, I might have done something really stupid that night. Actually... I would still like to. That was in 1997 and still seems like yesterday. Illinois plate UPS700 -Jackson county -Camaro.

 

[cracked butt]

I had an incident a long time ago with a similar *****. Driving in a 55 zone on a 2 lane rural highway, a guy in front of me was doing 45. I proceeded to pass him in a legal passing zone. He open the throttle on his truck and stayed with me, not letting me by him, speeds reached 75 mph, a semi was coming the other way, I put on the brakes hard to get back behind the guy, he put on the brakes also not letting back into the lane, I tried speeding up again, so did he, I finally ran him off the road.


When I got home I found a police cruiser in my driveway, with a local cop who wanted to have a talk with me. Seems the other guy filed a complaint at the Police department. The cop mentioned first that the incident happened in a different jurisdiction so he couldn't write a ticket if he wanted to, and he saw no reason to anyhow as not only did he not believe the other guy's story, but as the cop described the guy as a condescending and belligerent *****. The officer then went on to lecture me on making sure I understand the power of my car and what its capable of so that I can make whatever maneuvers necessary when such an incident happens. He didn't go as far as to endorse running the guy off the road, but he didn't say it was wrong either.

 

[cracked butt]

Illinois plate UPS700

Atticus, I just read your post after writing mine. The guy in my incident had illinois plates too. Are Illinois drivers disliked in your State also? In our state we have alot of colorful names for Illinois residents who invade our state every weekend.

 

[cordex]

If you pull over, I suggest you not get out of your car. If they leave their vehicle, you will have better mobility. Additionally, getting out might seem like a challenge to their little, aggressive mind.

 

[lee n. field]

Are Illinois drivers disliked in your State also? In our state we have alot of colorful names for Illinois residents who invade our state every weekend.

Some of us are sane.

 

[synoptic]

Road rage incidents are pretty much the reason I got my CHL. I've had 2 instances where I've been in a bad situation that luckily didn't get worse. When you're driving down the road you'll be hard pressed to get the cops to do anything for you. And be careful with 911, they will sometimes transfer you to the appropriate police department in these situations meaning your conversation may not be recorded

 

[Atticus]

"Are Illinois drivers disliked in your State also?"

Can't answer that one. I live in Ohio now, but I was raised in Southern Illinois- and many Southern Illinoisan's don't consider themselves to be Illinois residents.
I grew up not knowing it was illegal to carry a gun concealed, or strapped to the handlebar of my bike, etc. Good thing I left....I'd probably be taking advantage of three hot's and a cot in Menard by now.

 

[Sunray]

"...Would I be justified in pulling a weapon..." Not while you're driving. You should have recorded his plate number and reported his careless/reckless driving to the correct cop force. Up here, one is a Criminal Offence(indictable Stateside?) the other not. Can't ever remember which is which.

 

[ARperson]

Couple of thoughts.

I agree with not leaving the car. If they do (onced you've stopped as in your example), you've got a better chance of avoiding them in a vehicle as on foot.

Also, I have the gun available for use, but not out.

Third, in a 92 5.0 how did you not put miles between you? One of our vehicles is a 92 LX so I know what kind of power we're talking about here. Unless he had something with similar power, you should have been long gone before he had a chance to flex the foot for acceleration.

I've had two experiences with different tactics. Worth sharing for anecdotal purposes only.

I was driving a Suburban (bright red, ya can't miss it on the road). Pulled up in the left turn lane behind some little Honda thing (driven by a mom with her kid in the car). We get the arrow and she proceeds to scoot. Well, she had a manual tranny and wasn't so adept at shifting. I ended up pretty close to her rear as I was still accelerating and she had slowed way down between shifts. Was totally unintentional, and I let off the gas immediately, trying to let her get ahead of me. She happens to look in the rearview at this exact point and sees the Chevy bowtie up her tailpipe. Guess she thought I was being agressive because she slams on her brakes hard. (With a kid in the car.) So I wave like "sorry" and motion her to drive. Well, she's not happy with that. She keeps flooring it and than slowing down to make me creep up on her and then slams on the brakes. I seriously thought about hitting her, but instead pulled out the cell phone and held it real close to the windshield as I "dialed". I then had a great "conversation" with the "authorities" about the crazy female driver on such-and-such a road in a tan Honda. She straightened up real quick, even turned her signal on with plenty of notice before she turned off. Hee hee.

Second incident: I pissed off a drive accidently when he decided to exit the highway at the last minute. The problem is that at the "last minute" spot on the highway, the exit lane splits into two lanes. Most people take the inside one, but I take the outside one because I need to turn immediately after the exit. So when I took the outside lane, I effectively cut him off. He followed me, even on the turn to my house. Since most people don't make that turn, I got concerned. I grabbed the gun and made it available since we had to stop at a light and I didn't want him to come up to me without being able to "talk" him into getting back into his car. While waiting for the light to go green, I called the hubby and told him to be ready, someone might be following me home. Turns out he did follow me, but passed on. To this day I don't know whether he lived down the road or thought better of his actions when he saw hubby come out the front door to meet me.

I did pull in as if I was turning around and waited for him to get outta site before I pulled all the in. If he was from around there, he knew where I lived anyway. If he wasn't, hopefully he thought I was just turning around.

I figure I'll probably have to use the carry gun to protect myself from a road rage incident before any other type of self defense incident.

And Illinois drivers around here are crazy.

 

[RocketMan]

I lived in the Phoenix area during the eighties. Both my (now ex)wife and I agreed that there was an overabundance of problem drivers in that area that were visitors or new arrivals from Illinois.
Roughly half of the drivers that we observed doing something stupid had Illinois plates.
We seldom saw out-of-towners from other areas making stupid moves on the road.

 

[Zach S]

I had the same problem once, I cant remember eveything that happened, but do remember that he spun sideways blocking the road in front of me. I woulda rammed him, he moved (I was in an Olds Delta 88 Wagon, he was in an escort).

I know, it was stupid, but it worked.

 

[Moparmike]

There are 3 things you need in this sort of a situation:

1. Brains and the ability to use them.
2. Horsepower.
3. A cell phone.

I have had a couple of situations like this. It is amazing what a car nicknamed "The Baja Buick" by friends or the power of German engineering will do with brains behind the wheel.

 

[Frohickey]

An automobile can be a deadly weapon, but an automobile can also be considered cover.

Do not leave the automobile. Do not exit the automobile if you are still mobile, and otherwise not blocked in. Escape and evade is easier with the automobile.

Remember, a 230gr 45ACP going 880FPS has 396 ft-lb of energy.
While a 2500lb Ford Mustang going 25MPH has 50360 ft-lb of energy.

 

[cordex]

Tonight I witnessed a particularly nasty road-rage incident eastbound on US40 just west of junction 39 that seems to fit here.

4 pick-up trucks (obviously together, one towing another truck) and a car were trading off doing stupid things to anger each other. Cutting each other off, trapping each other, blocking the roadway, and eventually the 4 trucks forced the car to pull into a parking lot, whereupon half a dozen chaps jumped out and began to express their displeasure.

Needless to say, I exfiltrated immediately as well as intentionally kept back from the idiots on both sides during their little dance.

This is the kind of situation that could have been avoided by either party, but once the trucks boxed the car in, there was nothing that car could have done. At that point, their "deadly weapon" became deadly mostly to themselves. Had I been in their spot (I wouldn't have been, because I'm a pretty mellow driver and wouldn't have antagonized a convoy of angry lowlifes), I would have had an assortment of defensive options available to me including a 1911, a slug-loaded rifled shotgun, and a compound bow.

Thankfully, I saw a few police cars heading back in that direction and I didn't have to pull into someone's driveway and make them call the cops.

Perhaps I need to carry a cell phone.