We’ve all had a moment where our inner Mad Max comes out and you kind of lose it behind the wheel. I have roughly the longest fuse known to mankind but when that sucker burns out, stuff can go down. I can honestly remember only one time that I completely snapped behind the wheel and that was in high school. I was on a date with my girlfriend (now my wife) and we were minding our own business in my 1982 Chevy short box 2WD truck. A lunatic in what I seem to remember as being a Civic nearly t-boned us when flying out of a side street.
The guy proceeded to yell all kinds of stuff at me and my girlfriend and that world’s longest fuse got short in a hurry. I saw red and jumped out of the truck. This dude’s eyes got as big as pie plates and he chirped the tires while making a hasty escape. I proceeded to jump back in the truck and chase his ass Fall Guy style. We were careening around my small town like Tom and Jerry with my girlfriend strongly letting me know that she would prefer me to cease and desist. I wasn’t hearing that and I was pretty much hell bent on getting my mitts on this guy.
Anyway, he jumps down a side street, throws his lights off and then tries to hide in a driveway. The only flaw in his plan was that I saw what driveway he went into so I pulled right in, turned on my high beams, and went to step out of the truck when he went full panic and hauled ass across this person’s lawn, making off into the night. The homeowner came out where I promptly explained that I thought the guy was drunk and I had his license plate number. That satisfied me.
From that night on, I have never done anything like that. In retrospect I can see where it could have gone wrong 20x a minute and there could have been far worse things than some dude with piss in his shorts and an unknown homeowner with a pair of tire tracks across their lawn. It was easily the dumbest thing I have ever done when angry behind the wheel. I know I am not the only one.
BangShift Question Of The Day: What’s The Dumbest Thing You Have Done “Driving Angry”?
If I said they still come get me after 20 years:)
Seriously, was on a two lane country road with almost no shoulder when I came up behind a redneck in a jacked up four wheel drive going about twenty. I pulled out to pass and his buddy ahead of him pulled over into my lane and blocked me. I fell back and tried again in the next passing zone only to be blocked again.
I tried again about four times to get around them and got blocked every time. These jerks thought it was great sport to drive twenty mile an hour and block folks that were trying to pass.
I finally had enough and gunned it and started around the redneck in front on the left shoulder, or what there was of one. Just about the time I got around the boy a cop tops a hill coming the other way.
He hauled the two rednecks off to jail for drunk driving and if he had room most likely would have carried me off too for being stupid. I still got to give the county $678 of my hard earned money though.
brotha I have been there a 100 times it never fails when you need a cop they arn’t to be found and the minute you know your breaking the law whammo . bet i’ve spent thousands of bucks because of some dumb asses !
Someone once tried to tailgate me through the resident gate at my apartment complex. I was in a stick shift so when they saw my brake lights go off the drove into the back of me not realizing i wasnt rolling yet. I got out to accept their apology but instead was met with accusations and attitude. I got back in, threw it in reverse and gave them the old chrome middle finger before going through gate.
My brand new brother in law and I got into a fight on my wedding day in front of everyone. The fight was broken up, and my brother in law left. I was steaming mad about him starting a fight at my wedding and wasn’t ready for things to end just yet. I ran outside, hopped in my wifes car, a 99 Pontiac GTP, and proceeded to give chase. I only made it only about a quarter mile before the FWD’s understeer got the best of me and I curbed the car and took out a set of 4 mailboxes. Needless to say, the new wife wasn’t very happy and surely was second guessing the marriage. I am still married, and my BOL is my best friend now, if you can believe that.
Oh boy…….. I ran into the back of a dodge pick up…. on purpose, after he cut me off. Broke the header panel on my old caprice, probably scratched the paint on the Dodges bumper, but he wouldn’t pull over to swap info, go figure. Only time I was ever that pissed to actually do anything, still surprised at my self for that one.
For the third time in LA in a year I was stopped at a stoplight in the rain.
From the rear I heard the brakes lock up tires slide and braced for the hit. BANG! I got out of my old Dodge Caravan and walked back to see a late model Chrysler 300 with the grille and front facia punched out and the radiator busted. The car also had windshield banners and paperwork on the side windows indicating that it was out on a test drive.
I asked for thee drivers’ DL and offered mine. He didn’t have one and claimed to not be able to speak English. I knew better because I heard him on his cel speaking PERFECT English.
He had no license he had no insurance and my old van was not damaged to any extent. I asked him again if he could speak english he denied he could. I told him I knew he was lying and at that point I walked to my van and left him and his broken undrivable borrowed car in the street. .
Sitting at a stoplight on the way to work a graveyard shift , idiot pulls up along side me in his pos and proceeds to light em up . His car goes sideways and starts to bounce off the back tire of my lifted chevy shortbox ,I open my door which swings over his roof and start beating on his car with my baseball bat. At this point he freaks out and to get away runs the red light. As I’m closing my door I look across the intersection and see a cop sitting there shaking His head . He flips on his lights and goes after the drunk burnout king and I continue on to work.
3 lane highway, in the left lane, the dumbass is barely going the speed limit, I leave him some space because we’re passing a 18 wheeler. We’re done passing so I’m starting to accelerate because I think he’ll move back in the right lane… WRONG, he stays in the passing lane, I don’t have time to move right to pass him before the next van. So I again give him some space. Done passing the next van, he still doesn’t move, I can’t pass so I try flashing him the highbeams so he moves and I can finally pass but instead he decides to slow down. I’m probably getting red in the face a bit by now. So I start closing the gap between his Nissan Sentra and my trusty ’96 Chevy Sierra pick-up, that’s when he decided he could try braking in my face… twice. I lost it. I must have been a few inches from him, I was going to touch and push him or if he braked to ram him full force. That’s when he decided to floor it, so I gave chase, passing people on the shoulder to get to him, I was ready to follow him to wherever he was going, no idea how fast we were going.
That’s when I checked my mirror to see make sure I could change lane without hitting the guy in the next lane and I noticed flashing light… Oh ho!
I stopped, he didn’t. I explained the situation to the cop who was a superior officer in an unmarked car, he was wearing a suit so he probably was an inspector or something and he didn’t have a ticket pad in his car! I said I was glad he had caught me and it was probably a better idea than me catching the a-hole. He answered that I would be receiving my tickets in the mail but I never did 😀 !!!
I was late at my wife appointment with the doctor to see how the pregnancy for our first kid was going, when the nurse saw me she took the blood pressure of my wife and mine, I was apparently still red.
The guy girlfriend was yelling at him in the car, I hope she kicked him in the nuts, broke up with him and ask her big brother to give him a beating.
there are some dumb asses out there forsure !
Street racing a drunken idiot because he threw his half empty bottle of Jack Daniels at me hitting my car. He got a little ahead of me, tried to cut me off, lost it, and flipped his car four times right in front of me. My last street race.
Chased a guy at an intersection ,jumping out of the car to do this because minutes before he decided to piss out of the window of his pick up about 500 feet in front of me and it got all over my windsheild. He didnt get out of the truck (passenger obviously) an the driver took off. It could have been bad.
Driving to the mall one afternoon a woman in a BMW cut me off on the freeway. I lay on the horn only to get the finger. Pulling into the parking structure I see her pull into a space and walk off. The note I left on her windsheild would probably get me arrested today, something about her body being found in a dumpster. I didn’t wait around to see her reaction but I bet it was priceless. ;-D
Mad at the wife… Sat on my gloves and left my coat unbuttoned when I left on the bike.. Too much throttle..bike said no way boyo, back tire spun, hit left stop, right stop, laid down, sending me off the saddle sideways.. Broke nothing.. Cut up my chest on gravel and had skidmarks on my hands and chin…. Never ride mad..
Not much of a story, but . . . .
On the two-lane highway in front of the police station, the speed limit was 35 m.p.h. The town was a huge, teenager-hating speed trap.
I was in a 428 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ with 3.90:1 gears and Thrush straight-through mufflers.
My brother’s various exploits had made the deafening Pontiac well-known to the local authorities.
Some doofus in an oil field company car was in a hurry and got hacked at my strict observance of the speed limit. He eventually gunned it in a no–passing zone, flew by and fired off a “middle digit” salute.
I watched as he pulled away for a couple of miles on the highway, staying down at the 35 m.p.h. limit, but burning at the “diss.”
Oil man douche turned off on a bumpy section-line road that connected with the interstate about five miles away. I could barely see him at the turn.
I leisurely turned at the intersection and once off the heavily patrolled highway, the infamous “red mist” fully descended.
I floored it. The howling 428 left over 100 feet of rubber as the big Poncho launched hard. The “bang-screech” TH400 shifted viciously and the brutalized rear tires kept screaming for mercy. I kept my foot buried.
Quickly the 428 ran out of r.p.m., with speed well in the triple digits. Flat out, it didn’t take long to catch the oil field sedan, which was only going about 70 m.p.h. (in a 45 m.p.h. zone).
I hung about ten feet off of “Finger man’s” bumper until we got to the interstate.
Even though 55 was the national law, Oil field man goosed his lame smogger and tried to get away. I just paced him for a while . . . on the bumper, of course. Then I pulled out in the left lane, floored the big 428 . . . amazingly got a hint of “rubber,” and just left the oil field sedan in the dust.
Best day EVER!
I used to have a pretty nice 1977 Chevy 1/2 ton 4×4. Nothing special, but it wasn’t beat up at all.
My buddy and I used to go fishing for channel catfish, a lot… I was parked at the local neighborhood grocery store (remember those?) and he ran inside to get some chicken livers for bait. As I am sitting in front of the store, listening to the radio in the truck, enjoying a nice afternoon and waiting on my buddy to emerge from the store, an old Buick Electra 225 with 3 enormous (big…. I mean REALLY big) women inside pulled up alongside the old Chevy and parked next to mee. In their effort to pour themselves out of the passenger side of the old Buford, they flung the doors wide open and smacked the crap out of the side of my truck. I rolled down the window and asked, “What the hell are you doing?” They didn’t so much as acknowledge me and I was now fuming at the two fresh dents in the side of my truck. These heifers waddled into the store to buy some pork rinds and and my pissed-o-meter was pegged. My buddy came out of the store, hopped in the truck, completely unaware of the proceedings that had just taken place, and said, “Let’s go.”
I cranked the wheels hard to the right, dropped the New Process into reverse, gunned the engine and sidestepped the clutch. As the truck roared out of the parking spot, the front bumper caught the trim on the side of the deuce ‘n a quarter and proceeded to peel it off the side of the brown car. As the truck continued its rearward progress, the bumper, while still skimming trim off the side of the GM boat, ate into the once glistening brown paint and left a full-length crease on the side of the Buick. My buddy freaked out until I told him what had transpired. The rotund sisters probably didn’t even notice the damage in their fried pork fat stupor, but I am sure they figured it out eventually.
I once chased a black guy dressed like a pimp in a gold mercedes with 22″ rims and michigan plates here in Ontario because the nearly killed me.
I was in my 69′ dart with a very built 340 (W2 heads, big solid cam, etc – honest 406hp to the wheels) with a very mild 3.23 gear in the 8.75″ rear because I had blown up the 4.30’s that is usually had in it. Blowing up the 4.30’s was a common occurrence in this 10 second car.
I was going down the 401 westbound just past the town of milton, doing the speed limit in heavy traffic, in the right lane, minding my own business. Up ahead, stopped on the shoulder is an early 90’s Mercedes 2 door, painted in a horrible shade of gold with the biggest ugliest wheels on it. As I come up on said uglymobile, the douchbag inside decides to merge through the lane that I am current occupying from a dead stop. I slam on the brakes, hard left on the wheel after a quick glance that nobody was there and try to go around him, but he was continuing his merge into at least the center lane and tags the rear bumper on the Dart, spinning me like a top down the center lane at 60mph. I think I did three complete revolutions, miraculously not hitting anything and still facing the right way in the left lane. I was still doing about 45mph with fresh skidmarks on the pavement and in my shorts, and slightly in shock with what could have been a very very bad crash.
While I am recovering, jerkface in the uglymobile flips me off and throws a half full beer can at my car, and floors it to take off. I saw red and pulled the full manual 727 into first, and stomped to go pedal to the floor,just boiling the tires as the 340 wound up to the 7200rpm limiter. Jerkface must have heard me, but he had about a 30mph lead on me and must have thought he was safe – so he kept his hand out the window giving me the bird and he tried to speed away. With second gear I cam up on his bumper fast and kept in it right through third. The speedo was buried, and he was whipping that mercedes as hard as he could to get away. I cooled down after a few miles as he cut through traffic with my car inches from his bumper and tried to get away. I got his plate, and let off the gas, leaving him to speed away, hopefully with new skidmarks in his shorts also. Worst part was, that as soon as he got clear, air got under the front of the dart, and I sudden had almost no steering until I slowed down to number that existed on the speedo. I took the backroads home….slowly….with a second set of skidmarks in my shorts.
Man…how do we survive the things we do when we are young and dumb.
i have many i live in Va. and travel to the north on I-95 ! 5 days a week in bumper to bumper cars it takes on a good day 1hr to go 25 miles so tempers are up and lots of finger action also . mine starts out as soon as i hit I-95 i got of ramp there was a van behind me it had a vacum cleaner on roof , i later found out it was a cleaning company and it was advertizment . so anyway i work my way over to fast were doing 40 to 45 suddenly i notice the van pass me and got in front of me so for a mile i waited to go around him , i got my chance i moved to middle lane notice there were no cars infront of for 1/8 mile so when i by i looked at the guy like whats up , i mean when i drive i’m safe and a safe thing to is not ride behind something you can’t see through rite ? so about 5 miles later this guy makes his way back up and in front of me , so you know what i did . this went on for 25 miles now we are in heavy trafic and he got stuck in a lane further back so i made my way to my exit an off the interstate i go down to a buzy stop lite so I’m sitting there with radio playing minding my own bizz when i notice a pair of legs walking up to my car in the drivers mirrio so i hit my lock butten then this taps on my window , i look at him to see if i know him , nope i cracked the window said ya whats up . he starts ranting at me what the fuk your problem dude i said what you talkin about he say you think you own the road man ? he had his hand on my door handle so i slip across the seat and got out the passengers door [now i’m 225 ib’s 5″11 and i have been a steel worker all my life ] hes like 160 maybe 5″7 as i get out he meets me on passenger side i look at cars behind me and notice that van about 5 cars back at same time he notice I;m BIG . i said are you the nut case in that van ? he said yes i, i said why were you so intent on being infront of me ? you msut not like being behind Dusters rite ? he said no i just don’t like people passing me and looking at me with the lok you gav- Pause it was here he point at and put his finger in my space ! i grabed his finger and broke it right there then he tryed to hit with his left and i twisted his finger around in a circle . he stop said let me go i’ll stop so i did he jumped me i threw him on ground and smashed his nose into crib and hit whit my meat hook . i walked around my car got in and drove to work leaveing him laying on side of road , 2 hr’s later a state thrupper show at my job , he took me to cruzer asked me want happen i told him , he said ( I’d have done the same thing ) he said lets keep driveing safe and no more fighting with people on hwy ! thats just one of the many times .