So this guy in a car runs a stop sign and almost hits me yesterday afternoon. He honks at me for being in the was and i say you had the stop sign asshole. So he decides to get out of the car with a baseball bat. I unlock my chain from around my was and continue to get cursed out. how do you deal with these fucking crazy people.
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Obey the lugnut rule, and always presume someone else is not going to stop.
A phone call to 911 in your situation. Really, the guy got out of his car with a bat because you yelled at him? Wow, summer should be fun.
This is good advice, but there is so little in place at this point to rein in reckless and aggressive driving, I don't think we should just put our heads down and submit to threatening driver behavior without at least some token effort to send a message that it's not OK.
That said, I think you often weaken your case (not to mention increase your chances of getting seriously hurt) when you respond to a show of violence with the same. Especially if there are witnesses, you stand the best chance of prevailing if you maintain your appearance of being "the victim" in the situation.
In this particular instance, reading between the lines it sounds like the driver did not grab a bat and come at Aaron swinging, but rather was holding it to appear threatening. I probably would have kept my distance but leveraged the situation to play up the fact that the driver was being bizarrely aggressive. I'd keep my hands at my side (or on my handlebars if I was still on a bike) so there could be little likelihood of any witnesses getting the impression that you were the aggressor, and in terms of verbally engaging, I've come to the conclusion that your only real chance of getting anything across that might make a difference in this particular aggressor's future dealings is to appeal to some sense of humanity-- avoid anything that feeds into "I'm right, you're wrong,", and stick to general messages that remind them what it would be like to not behave anti-socially towards others-- "be nice to people,", "I'm worried you might hurt someone, sir", "it's not cool to threaten people with your car,", something along those lines.
Patrick O'Connor said:Obey the lugnut rule, and always presume someone else is not going to stop.
I say " I love you "
Pull out your camera.
In this specific case I'd think that would only give him a convenient target to hit, assuming he wasn't going use your head as one. If his original intent was to threaten and intimidate, but he wasn't going to actually hit you, you might be inadvertantly escalating the situation. His thinking being "I won't hit a person, but I'll sure smash a camera"
Barbra Mann said:Pull out your camera.
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