We had a pretty decent trip from Findlay Ohio to Mesquite Texas, which is in the Dallas metro area. A little trouble happened after we left our customer's facility & were on our way to our next customer.
A pickup truck turned left in front of me from the "right only" lane at a stop light. Putting me in immediate danger of a crash, I honked at him. Half a mile up the road, we approached each other again as we approached a stop light. He swerved left, partially into my lane - causing another near encounter; I had to honk again to avert collision.
My honking was fully justified, but he apparently took it with great offense. So, he followed me onto the freeway. Highway 80 wasn't very congested, but there were sufficient numbers of other vehicles to keep the enraged driver accountable. And he eventually passed me and reeked of mischief. I asked Stephanie to pull out her phone & record video. I slowed down to give him lots and lots of space, but he slowed down as well. At 45 mph, I turned on my four-way hazard lights. Our speeds got even slower than that. No other vehicle dared to pass us as they saw what was going on & didn't want to become entangled in a potential crash.
My exit was coming up. I needed to take I-635 South. I merged right, and merged again. The aggressive driver matched my every move and slammed on his brakes at every moment possible. I continued to do my best to keep some distance. Trying to evade him, I tried to change lanes erratically as safely as I could , if that makes any sense. He got his final lick on me as he suddenly straddled a lane & "brake checked" me hard. I guess I lost this game he was playing, but I am glad we didn't actually collide. The hard braking event registered a "CER" on my truck computer. Being leased to a very large company with stringent safely & monitoring stances, the "critical event report" was sent to my supervisors desk.
I called my supervisors in Charlotte within 90 minutes of the event. Just prior to that, I stopped at the company terminal in Dallas to show the video to members of the training team, also known as "OSRs". They studied the video carefully, asked probing questions, and finally congratulated me on proper handling of the situation.
Stephanie shared the video to Facebook. Our friends naturally commented on what an evil jerk the pick-up truck driver was. Being alright with feeling some heat, I asked her to share it to the driver page. As expected, there were some constructive criticism & "you could have's...". At the end of the day, I think I handled this rare event well enough. But maybe next time, I'll try driving even slower or pulling off of the road when an aggressor is so intent upon inflicting damage.
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