Redditor Let Their Temper Get The Best Of Them, Ends Up A Victim Of Road Rage Attack

Everyone needs to learn a bit of emotional regulation

Kylin

• Published in Interesting
• December 1, 2022

Even though you have to pass a written and skills test to be able to legally drive in the United States, many people are not very good at driving. Depending on where you are, like a touristy area, you’re likely to experience ever worse drivers.

Some people drive their vehicles solely by speeding, weaving in and out of traffic to always be ahead. While others are perpetually distracted, usually attached to their phones.

Add all of that with fragile egos and overly emotional people, then road rage becomes an all-too-common occurrence. People have literally lost their lives to road rage.

And as most people know, just because something is illegal, doesn’t mean someone won't do it anyway. Something a Redditor recently found out firsthand.

User Thesorcers recounted their experience with an aggressive driver and a road rage attack with Reddit’s TIFU (Today I F-ed Up) community. They admit that while they knew better, they gave into temptation and “flipped the bird” at an aggressive driver who had been tailgating them.

Any reasonable and normal adult could do a number of things in response: Ignore it, return the gesture, maybe even shout some choice words. However, OP did not flip off any reasonable or normal adult and learned a very scary lesson.

Continue scrolling to read the full story, and see how Redditors responded.

Gotta love a TL;DR at the top

OP came across a speeding driver who was aggressively tailgating them

When they had a chance, they merged over to the next lane to let the tailgater pass

OP let their pettiness get the better of them, and gave the aggressive driver "the finger" as they passed

OP admits they knew better, but sometimes you do things you know you shouldn't

In a wild twist, the driver cuts off OP and slams on their brakes and attacked OP's car

When the driver couldn't get into OP's car, he punched the car several times then sped away

OP's car was left with 2 dents and a damaged headlight

Hindsight is 20/20, amiright

To top it all off, that was only one of four other bad driving incidents they had that day

Can confirm: No one knows how to drive in Florida

Many Redditors offered the same suggestion: File a police report

Super uncool

The driver managed to get away from OP before they could get any info

So unfortunately, OP didn't get their license plate number

Flipping someone off is rude, but attacking people is a lot worse

OP *does* have proof of the attack

OP also had some inaccurate information regarding hand gestures

Dunno how that could be illegal or enforced

Where did OP get that idea?

Florida's public education, of course

I get it now

There are many reasons not to live in Florida regardless

Just do away with the whole state

Other driver FU, not OP

People are crazy

Dude needs like a handful of chill pills

Regardless of legality, if inside their car they cant be bothered for any illegal signals

Other driver couldn't have been in that much of a hurry

Guess OP will not be doing that again

That interaction should be *more* than enough to keep OP from repeating any mistakes

Having a clunker adds insult to injury

The other drivers ego was obviously extra fragile that getting flipped off by a kid in a junk car would make it worse for them

Could OP have accidentally cut him off?

No matter what happened, the other driver completely over-reacted

As far as OP knows, they didn't do anything leading up to flipping the bird

Definitely a sucky situation to experience

Thankfully only OP's car was damaged

And OP learned a valuable lesson

OP eventually added an update to their post after many commenters urged them to file a police report

Thank goodness they filed a report, even if OP doesn't get any personal justice

Thankfully, OP got through the whole encounter relatively unscathed. While their car may have been damaged, they weren’t harmed.

And sure, it wasn’t cool for them to insult the other driver by flipping them off, but OP is a kid, and from the sound of it, the other driver was an adult. One would think an adult would have some sort of emotional regulation skills.

Kylin