rage: how i became a victim of someone else's road rage
BUT, i'll finally say what makes me so angry about this: it's not just that my body hurts, or my car was damaged. it's the fact that i was an innocent victim of someone else's fucking ROAD RAGE. see, that afternoon, i merged onto I-64 westbound to make the one hour drive to visit my parents. it's a road i know well and travel often so nothing hinted that this drive would be anything but routine. not far out of the city, i noticed three road ragers aggressivly weaving between lanes, tailing one another, and being plain obnoxious. so i switched to the left (passing) lane to speed ahead and lose them.
as i started ascending an incline known as afton mountain, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper. the area often gets clogged esp. during rush hour, because large trucks climbing the mountain can't go above 50 or 55 MPH. traffic slows, but it also gets dangerous because people who get stuck behind the trucks become so impatient and want out, so they make unsafe lane changes without thinking or looking.
anyway, there i am, minding my own business in the passing lane, going 70-72 MPH, getting ready to overtake a slow car in the right lane when i notice those three road ragers each dart in front of me through that narrow space between me and the car i'm trying to pass. okay. whatever. i think nothing of it as long as they drive off and away. but a second later, the second of those three slams on their brakes (presumably to piss off the third guy, who is right in front of me). i slam onto my brakes, just barely avoiding rear-ending him. i glance into my rear-view mirror and know i'm about to be hit and there's not a damn thing i can do about it. sure enough, i get rear-ended. i see the airbag deploy in that car and the windshield crack. she also gets rear-ended by the car behind her b/c it's a chain-reaction collision. i sit there stunned, in shock, hurting, crying, thinking i was going to barf, angry and screaming into my cell phone saying "i need help, i've been in an accident on the interstate!". it all happened so fast, by the time i realized i'd been hit, the road ragers were long gone. of course.
i'm sure they had no idea they'd caused an accident. sure, i'm pissed that i was rear-ended, and as far as liability goes, the woman behind me is fully liable. but the real cause was those three bastards who cut in front of me. i wished i'd gotten their license plate number and hoped there was a witness who saw it.
later on, at the hospital, the state police officer who had helped at the scene came to return my driver's license and car registration to me. i told him about the road ragers, and gave him a description of the car that had cut in front and braked suddenly: a 1986 or '87 red subaru stationwagon. the trooper told me something i didn't know: that stretch of highway is notorious for road ragers. i must say, it was music to my ears to hear him say he charged both the woman behind me, and the driver behind her with "Following Too Closely". despite my valium-induced grogginess, i was able to comprehend that much.
more to come later...
