More scenarios from Willie's Book of Life

[Madcap_Magician]

Willie should have his own subforum.

 

[ElToro]

I call BS on the guy "falling asleep" sounds like a good story he told as they ditched the weapon they were gonna try to rob you with as the cop pulled up. I think everyone involved is lucky the cop showed up when he did.

 

[Willie Sutton]

^^ I don't think so. The most noisy yelling was by the guy in the middle yelling at the driver, who was contrite and pretty shaken. The third guy was the one who came down with the flashlight to see if I was OK.

But you never know.


Willie

.

 

[tyeo098]

^^ I don't think so. The most noisy yelling was by the guy in the middle yelling at the driver, who was contrite and pretty shaken. The third guy was the one who came down with the flashlight to see if I was OK.

They were pacing with you and starin' at you through the window?
Then tried to pass and run you off the road? That's ill intent if I ever saw one.

No one follows a car doing 50 down I95 when the speed limit is 75 without some personal gain in mind.

Me? Had I noted I was being cased, I and the empty highway allowed for it, I would have stopped the car right there and waited. Phone 911. If they stopped as well, wait for them to exit their vehicle and punch it.
If they passed and moved on, well thats the next guy's problem.

Had I already been run off the road and they were coming to 'check on me?' I would have palmed the revolver at my 6 and waited. If they produced a weapon and made demands, give 'em lead poisoning.

The whole thing sounds sketchy. Avoid drawing at all costs, but if the time comes, let em fly.

 

[200Apples]

Back in '78, Willie was a college student studying in Florida, having come from NJ to the Florida Institute of Technology, school of Marine Sciences, in Jensen Beach. Willie was a starving college kid, literally poaching 'gators to fry in an electric skillet in the dorm and one who was not above raiding the odd orange grove for some vitimin C now and again. To say I was poor would have been an understatement. My possessions were few, but among them was my prize: A Ruger Police Service 6 fixed sight .357 Magnum, "Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty". I had paid $99 for it used, and it was the finest thing I owned. More on this anon.

In order to avoid absolute starvation, I worked for a firm in West Palm that specialized in delivering cars between the airport at West Palm and the airport in Newark NJ. Old folks would fly up and a day later their car would show up at their house in NJ, delivered by a bearded yet smiling Willie, who would gratefully accept their $100 bill plus fuel costs and a ride back to Newark Airport, where another car would be waiting. That one would go back down to West Palm, and if a young engineering student was resourceful and had his class schedule set up for a noon-start on Monday and a noon-end on Friday, he could do a round trip and make $200 for a weekend on the road. I did this for two years to put myself thru tjose years of school. As you can imagine, this entailed many late nights of time spent on the deserted highway, 2:00 AM driving, exhausted, seeing spots before my eyes with fatigue, and all in all it was a pretty tough thing to do. 19 hours each way was the norm, 1000 miles almost exactly from place to place.

Now at that time there was a rash of folks being robbed on Route 95 around the Jacksonville area. MO was to drive them off the road, rob them, and leave. This came to national attention when if Willie's memory serves correctly two Japanese tourists were killed in such an encounter. So this sets the scene:

Willie is driving back to Florida, and has been on the road for about two days. He's just south of Jacksonville at 1:30 AM, is exhausted, had drunk way too much coffee, and is not feeling all that great. Car is a Plymouth Volare', upholstered with "Rich Corinthian Leather" (for those who are old enough to remember Ricardo shilling for Plymouth and selling the worst car they ever built). Sunrise is a ways off and the music on the radio is boring. Doing about 65, just want to get this drive done. Headlights come up from behind, and as it comes alongside, they slow down and pace poor Willie. It's a pickup truck, open bed, Ford, of indeterminate vintage. Three guys are in it, and they start peering at poor Willie thru the window. I slow down and they slow down. I pick it up a bit and so do they. Willie gets a bit nervous. This goes on for a bit and they finally drop back about 100 feet and get behind me. Willie is now looking into the mirror at lights and isn't in too good a mood. Driving now about 50, hoping they will get bored and pass. After a bit they come over into the fast lane and start a very slow pass, save for that when they come alongside... well.... they pull to the right and drive poor college-Willie right off the road. Onto the steeply sloped down to the drainage ditch grass on the side Willie goes, and comes to rest nose down at the edge of the ditch. They pull off quickly on the shoulder about 10 feet ahead, toss the Ford into reverse, and pull back to where I'm sitting 50 feet off the road and down the hill.... this ain't good. The doors open and the guy in the passenger seat gets out and looks at me....

[...my Ruger, with six honest-to-God right from Lee Jurras Super Vel 125 grain hollow points, was in my little dittie bag by my knee...]

As tempted as I was to draw the Ruger and put one thru the "O" in "FORD" on the tailgate, I did what any self respecting kid would do... I ran away. I bailed out of the door with the little shaving kit bag with the .357 in it and hightailed it to what I figured would be a cow pasture on the other side of the wire fence at the side of the road. Sadly that was on the other side of the drainage ditch that I didn't see.... so after falling into about 6 feet of water with scaly-critters scattering in all directions, I did my best to get to the other side, at which I succeeded while only barely not dropping my precious Ruger. 'Bout this time a great commotion was taking place at the side of the pickup, with one guy giving another hell about something while the third ran down to my now abandoned Volare with a flashlight. After he saw I was missing an even louder hulabaloo took place with all three of them shoutin' and hollerin mostly at each other, but also directed towards me. I couldn't see a thing, was up to my neck in mud at the other side of the ditch, and had extricated the Ruger from it's bag and was waiting while swatting off the bugs. 'Bout five minutes of this and that, and a state trooper pulls up, puts on his lights, and gets outta the car and has a chat with the three before shining his spotlight down where I'm hiding up to my eyeballs in muck. By this time I'm both wet and cold, and I decide to wade across the ditch and so I do. Cop shines the light on me and says something about crazy kids, not noting that I'm shoving a revolver into my pants. I manage to get to the side of the car and drop the Ruger in thru the open window, and then all was revealed. Seems the three "Bad Guys" were on a long drive themselves, and the driver was just sleepy, and fell asleep at the wheel. There was no intent, and it was just... well... just an accident. I wasn't too pleased, but after shaking off the mud, and accepting their kind offer to pull me out with a chain, I was settled down a bit. They offered $20 so I could wash the car, and with the troopers advice to go find a motel somplace they left. I changed into dry clothes and left myself. Washed the car myself, pocketed the $20 for food, and delivered the car.

Cool story, bro.













Seriously, though... I wouldn't know what to do in that situation until it might happen to me. Brings to mind the text from an image I saw recently...

"I don't need a gun.
I have never needed a gun.
I hope I never need a gun.
And, in all likelihood, I will never need a gun.
However, should I ever need a gun, I should have a gun.
Therefore, I have a gun.
[And if three dudes in a pickup ever run me off the road in the middle of the night, jam it into reverse, then empty their vehicle in my direction...
that's when I'll need a gun.]"

At that point I'd be in Condition Orange and staring at Condtion Red right in the face.

What would today's great defensive trainers do? What would they suggest?...
I like Mr. Sutton's advice: "It's always better to disengage and retreat than to stand, even if standing is possible."

As for one's choices when "confronted by the guy on the bike"... that's a very tough call, because when motorcyclists act like jerks they can certainly take "jerk" to a whole 'nother level.

Thanks, Willie! Your posts are always thought-provoking and/or enjoyable. Hahaha...

 

[HankR]

No one follows a car doing 50 down I95 when the speed limit is 75 without some personal gain in mind.

Not totally ridiculous. If a guy is pretty much asleep and "zoning" he's going to match speed w/the traffic around him. Kind of on auto pilot. I tend to drive pretty stupid when I'm needing sleep. (yes, I already know it's not a good idea, I get it. Just saying that it's happened).

 

[Willie Sutton]

^^ I think this... having been "in the zone" myself at the time....

But you never know, and one of the lessons learned is that not everything is as it seems. That can go both ways: Good guys can seem like bad ones, and vice-versa.


Willie

.

 

[MachIVshooter]

I call BS on the guy "falling asleep" sounds like a good story he told as they ditched the weapon they were gonna try to rob you with as the cop pulled up. I think everyone involved is lucky the cop showed up when he did.

That's my thought as well. None of us will ever truly know, but the precursors to them running Willie off the road don't sound very benign at all.

Now, to answer the question posed before we became privy to the actual outcome......

If I were alone and another car is pacing me, pulling along side, people peering in, then falling back behind and pacing again, I would make a judgement call based on many factors and do one of two things (bearing in mind we're talking pre-mobile phone days):

1) Stop, let them go by and decide if I need to change course to avoid encountering them again or.....

2) if I believe they are going to stop with me, I will hammer it until they are unwilling or unable to pace me, then find a good place to wait it out.

In Willie's exact situation, we know that (despite his dislike of the vehicle), the Volare was almost certainly cable of outrunning and definitely able to out-handle a '78 or older Ford truck. The Mopar F-body was actually a very well designed car with a fairly advanced front suspension compared to other passenger cars of the day, and even the base model with a 225 slant six had a respectable power-to-weight ratio; the Volare and Aspen are lightweight cars, with even the 318-powered Wagon only tipping the scales at 3,300 lbs.

Now, getting to the point where Willie actually left off, I can't say for certain how I'd have behaved since I wasn't there, but I don't think I'd have done what he did. I'm a pretty peaceful person, but my instinct when threatened is definitely more fight than flight.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Willys story is a great reminder to stay Armed.

 

[Trent]

Well, you just never know, do you?

Got reminded of this recently when my pickup truck caliper seized up and started smoking while I was driving home from town the other night. Just a quick run in to wally world to pick up some useless thing that I've already forgot about (probably potting soil for the garden).

Smell smoke.

"Oh that's not good."

Stop the truck, get out, smoke rolling off the front right wheel. Take a peek and the rotor is glowing red hot.

Not many people take that road.

Called my boy and told him to bring a few gallons of water and a spray bottle so I could cool off the hub and limp my way back home. Took him a couple hours to finally get around to arriving... meanwhile, I'm in the dark, on a lonely country road, nary a person in miles...

... and I'm unarmed.

Was just a quick trip to town, to get potting soil. Because I needed one bag to finish the veggie pots.

I'm normally not one to get paranoid about bumps in the night or sitting in the dark. But I also don't like being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no other humans nearby without something that has a trigger to keep me company.

Got me thinking about "how random things can happen at any time" and I decided that even on mundane trips, I was carrying all the time from then on. And I have.

 

[Leanwolf]

TRENT - " ... Got me thinking about "how random things can happen at any time" and I decided that even on mundane trips, I was carrying all the time from then on. And I have."

Sounds like a wise move to me.

I've always said that if I knew the time and place where someone might attack me... I just wouldn't go there. But as I'm neither prescient nor clairvoyant, I always go armed.

L.W.

 

[downunderhunter]

Yet another enjoyable post Mr Sutton, I was hoping people would play along as intended but can understand that your stories are such a great read that convincing them to do so may be nigh on impossible. All the best and have a safe trip.