A South Florida Road Rage Story

Found at Reddit, it looks like all the action occurred in the Dolphin Mall/Sweetwater area last night...

So a little background: I'm 22 years old, been driving since I was almost 18. Live in Miami, FL so I'm sure most of you know how terrible the drivers are here in Miami...especially on a Saturday night...and ESPECIALLY after midnight.

So this happened to me a few hours ago, still kind of shaken up about it. So I'm leaving the mall, just finished having dinner with my family (uncle just got in town) and I'm on my way to go drink with a couple of friends. I'll try to describe the roads and the positions of the cars as best as I can.

So I'm leaving Dolphin Mall. I get to the exits that goes onto a main intersection. I'm at the stoplight. 3 lanes. 2 lanes on the left go towards the left. The one on most right goes right only. I'm in the middle lane. Light turns green and off we go. As the cars make the turn, the lane on the most left merges with mine. No big deal. I let a white BMW get between me and the car that was already in front of me, there's enough space for him. Out of nowhere, this big black suv cuts me off and gets between me and the white BMW forcing me to swerve halfway onto the lane next to me. Thankfully there were no cars on that lane. As he pushes me out of my lane, I instantly press my horn, and hold it making sure he knows what he just did.

Whatever. We continue driving. The SUV is in front of me. A few seconds after the lanes merge, we come to a stoplight that is red. I flash my high beams at him. I can't see his reaction since his windows are tinted. Light turns green. The cars move. A lane on the right opens up and I get on it. I accelerate a bit to look at the driver's face. Looked like a guy in his 30s, has a girl in the passenger seat. I try to shrug it off and keep on my lane, when I notice that as I try to accelerate so does he. We come up to another main intersection and all of a sudden the SUV cuts me off again. He almost crashed into a dark grey honda that was on the same lane as me, and almost makes me crash into him.

At this point I have no idea why he just did that. The guy gets out of his fucking car, and so does the woman. I don't know why the woman got out. But they both come to my window and start screaming at me. I'm in my car, doors locked, windows closed, but freaking out. As the title says, I've never come face to face with a person this crazy on the road. So they're both screaming at me. The woman says something in Spanish, I think it was something like I don't have any manners or some shit like that. I know Spanish I just didn't fully register what she said since my brain is going all over the place right now.

Then the woman backs away for a bit, and the guy slams his palm against my window. Now, for some reason, I decide to roll down my window. Maybe I thought that I could talk some sense into him. That was bad idea. They start screaming louder. The guy tells me to get the fuck out of the car. I'm just like "No! You guys were at fault!" and I roll my window back up. The woman walks back to the car and slams her hand on the hood of my car. They get back in the car and drive off.

At this point in the story, I am in shock. I really don't know why that just happened but it did. Now that I think back to it, it could have ended much, much worse. I really shouldn't have rolled down my window though, but as I said I was in shock and wasn't thinking straight. I should have just calmed down and taken a picture of his license plate. And maybe even his face. I sometimes have my gopro with me in my car and record my little road trips. But tonight I didn't have it with me, and at that moment I really wish I hadn't left it at home.

Why am I writing this? Don't know. I'm just hoping that whoever the driver was, as crazy as he seemed, that he didn't go and hurt any other drivers because that guy seriously doesn't belong on the streets behind a wheel. As I'm writing this, I'm still shaken up about it and glad that it didn't escalate to anything worse. And to whoever gets in a situation similar, lock your doors and make sure all your windows are closed. Luckily, there were other cars when this happened, so if anything bad had happened to me, I'd have witnesses on my side. But sometimes, you may not be so lucky.

It was a big mistake, in my opinion, for this person not to let this thing drop after blowing their horn. The flashing of lights and certainly driving up next to the person only escalated the situation.

This in no way excuses the behavior of the SUV driver and his very classy female passenger who are, based upon the description of the situation, your typical South Florida asshats with a huge sense of entitlement behind the wheel. We've all seen them. And, if we are honest about it, we're all, at one time or another, sometimes like them. It's what you become after years of mixing it up down here.

But the bottom line is that it's not worth it. All it takes is one guy like the SUV driver who decides he wants to exercise his Louisville Slugger or a well-regulated militiaman who wants to claim that he's "standing his ground" and all of a sudden being cut off turns into a life or death situation.

Let it go. Let them go.

Karma is bound to kick in eventually. It always does.


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