Adventures w/ Road Rage

This weekend I went on a trip with my uncle to visit one of his friends in North Carolina. Despite many things that he did to bother/annoy/anger/insult me while there, one thing in particular freaked me out. During the drive home, a driver quite a good distance away from us pulled into our lane without signaling first. I can understand the frustration had this person pulled directly in front of us, but as I said, they were quite far ahead already. Despite that, my uncle felt quite antagonized by this and sped up and switched lanes to get beside the car, all the while screaming random comments, all of which seemed to contain the term "mother fucker." When beside the car, my uncle then, at 90 mph, stuck half of his body out the window of the van, pointing some cane towards the car and trying to hit it while screaming "I WANT YOU!" over and over. I had no idea what the hell was going on and was too freaked out to say anything. After he finally stopped he pulled back behind the car and followed them, still at 90 mph, right on their bumper, still endlessly cursing them. Somehow they got away and disappeared from view, but my uncle was still in a state of complete rage for quite a while after, maintaining similar behavoir towards other drivers for what to me seemed to be no apparent reason.

This occurance really, really freaked me out. I've never seen such blatant disregard for safety whilst driving. I've heard plenty of road rage stories, but damn, it really puts that whole thing into perspective being the passenger in the vehicle of someone who has quite literally lost all composure on the road. In retrospect, I wish I had told him he needed to calm down, but it happened out of nowhere and I was basically shocked, and I honestly didn't know how he'd react if I had said anything to him in that state. Luckily it all worked out anyway...

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be going on any other trips with him.

Anyway, share your crazy "road rage" experiences.

I would make it a point to never get back into a car with him behind the wheel. Saying something during the incident might have distracted him even more from what he was doing and he might have actually hit their car.

There is no excuse for behaving like that on the road.

Damn. It almost sounds like this isn't a unique incident for him; in which case, he probably shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel anymore.

I'd say it probably wasn't a unique incident since his "I WANT YOU!" cane was seemingly immediately ready at his disposal.

As I said, I'm definitely going to be adamant about not taking any other trips with him if he is to be the driver.

Yeah, I would say he's definately done that before. Thats just inexcusable. No one should act like that.

good god almighty! Get that man a heavy dose of valium and thorazine.. He needs to chill out..

Well if that ain't irony...

I had just posted my message and flipped over to my AOL.com screen and the topic was "'That Light Isn't
Getting Any Greener!'

Screaming, Laying on Horn Won't
Help: 10 Ways to Curb Road Rage"

It's people like that that are why I keep a baseball bat in my car. Nothing wrong with defending yourself.