David Heiller
I was heading over to St. John’s Lutheran
School last Thursday to take a photo of the
“student of the week” for the Bank of the West ad.
I stopped at the
corner of West Caledonia
and North Kingston. An RV was coming from the right,
but I had plenty of time to turn left in front
eat him.
Or so I thought. He
didn’t think so. I’m assuming it was a guy because, well, it was a kind of guy
thing that happened next.
He drove his mammoth
vehicle up close to my bumper and honked his horn. It wasn’t just single honk, or even a double
one. It was one continuous honk, and it lasted for three blocks, all the way
until I turned right onto East Taft Street.
I glanced out my window to see who was driving. Maybe it was Darth Vader. I thought I would catch a wave
of the good old flag, but he was already past me and hurtling angrily onward.
He had to be angry. Either
that or his horn was stuck, or he was trying to impersonate a Towboat.
I’m sure this gentleman has a different perspective on what happened. He’s probably still steaming
about the idiot in the little red car that pulled in front of him on his very busy Thursday afternoon.
I don’t think I did any bad driving, but maybe I did.
It’s sometimes a relative issue. It still doesn’t explain his anger. A simple
honk would have sufficed
to tell me his opinion of my driving. That would have translated into
“You jerk.” His continuous blast would not have translated into English
that could be printed on this page.
I’m puzzled by road rage. I think that’s what this was. And it brought out an
interesting reaction from me. When I realized that he was blaring his horn
non-stop at me, I slowed down! I got angry. I thought, “I didn’t do anything wrong,
you idiot. But I’ll show you now. We’ll just go nice and slow.” I didn’t even
pull over when the road widened in front of St. John’s Church.
Anger begot anger.
Things could have gotten worse, A few what-ifs pop into my mind. In
these days when your average Joe might be packing a .38, you never know.
Luckily I had to turn when I did.
You may have a road
rage story of your own. I recall watching a truck driver and car driver going
at it on Highway 23 north of Askov, Minnesota, about 10 years ago. I was
driving behind them, and I could see the truck driver waving his fist and
trying to pass. The car driver, who I knew to be a hothead, wouldn’t let him;
he would speed up and slow down, that kind of thing.
The car driver
finally turned off the highway, drove into town, and got out of his car to walk
to the bank. I stopped across the street at a gas station. The trucker roared into
town, stopped in the middle of the street, hopped out, ran over to the man, punched
him in the face, then got back in his truck and drove off. It was a very strange
and scary thing to witness. I don’t know who started the altercation, but it should
not have come to that.
So I’ll offer this in closing: control your temper,
drivers. I don’t think my advice will do any good.
