Road Rage Incident

[hrmaddie 48]

This happened to my oldest daughter out-of-state.  Short story - she was driving 5-10mph over the speed limit on a 50mph road minding her business.  Douchebag drives up next to her, kind of spooked her, she said she decided not look at him and continue driving.  He drops back behind her, a couple of car lengths.  She proceeds to get into the left turning lane and he follows.  She starts to get a weird feeling and thinks douchebag is following her, so she quickly moves back into the right lane and heads right instead of left to the grocery store.  This was a mistake on her part, she's 19 and was scared, no pics.  I told her she should have continued to the grocery store, public place with lots of people. 

He follows her into the right lane, which really freaks her out.  She starts speeding to try and get away.  He comes up quickly and rear ends her.  She finds a safe place to pull over, mistake #2.  He pulls over with his car at an angle in front of hers, I guess thinking he was blocking her in.  My daughter is scared and decides to call 911.  He comes up to her window screaming I am trying to teach you a lesson, as if he is the police.  At this point my daughter is crying hysterically while on the phone with 911, she is scared.  911 tells her to lock the doors and roll up the windows.  She gives 911 the license plate, description of the car and douchebag.  On the 911 call you can hear him admit to rear ending my daughter's car.  Douchebag sees the call is 911 from the dashboard screen and leaves the scene.

Police show up a few minutes later, take my daughter's statement and they have someone follow her back to her apartment.  Police tracked dickhead down and he tells them he was trying to teach her lesson and denied hitting her car (even though there is damage, minimal, but still there).  Police decide to write it up as an incident and let the insurance companies handle it. 

My wife and I happen to be flying up the following week to visit her.  We stopped at the police station asking for the officer's direct supervisor.  The officer walks out, not his supervisor and we start asking him why this is not treated as a hit and run or road rage.  He explains the dickhead denied hitting her and there were no witnesses, no one stopped to offer assistance.  His two choices were to ticket them both or let the insurance companies handle it.   We politely ask for his supervisor.  His supervisor was a lot more understanding and willing to look into the situation.  He said he would look at the body camera footage and listen to the 911 call.  He did say he was leaving for vacation and wouldn't be able to review it for two weeks, so we are waiting on his findings.

My questions are this, should I contact his insurance company and file a claim or what to see what the police may or may not do?  If filing a claim is there any sort of way of extracting a few extra dollars from the insurance company for my daughter without getting a lawyer?  I am not asking for 10K but maybe an extra $300-500 for her.

 

Short version - dickhead rear ends my daughter, yelling at her, she calls police, he leaves the scene - police write-it up as an accident - my daughter doesn't want him to get away with it, how does she handle it with dickhead's insurance

[Dahobbs 17682]

What is your primary concern? Getting money from insurance or getting a dangerous person off the road or at least force the cops to look into it? 

[TwiceHorn 31537]

As a general proposition, you don't get "intangible" (pain and suffering, etc.) damages for property damage via insurance (or a lawsuit).  You would have to come up with an injury of some sort.   In many collisions, there are actual injuries, thought to be nothing more than "whiplash," that deserve a little treatment, but get blown off nine times out of ten, sometimes for the worse.  This, however, doesn't sound like one of those.

Edited May 26, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[Quagmire 2147]

Yeah sounds like bullshit they didn’t do anything . Get a dash cam they have ones they video front and back. Then you’d have your proof an the event of any accident

[hrmaddie 48]

Primary concern is getting dickhead off the road.  Should my daughter go ahead and file and claim or wait and see what the police may or may not do, probably doesn't matter.  If he denies hitting her with his insurance company I am guessing if we want the car fixed we would have to file with our insurance company?  I could play them the 911 call to prove he rear ended her.

[TwiceHorn 31537]

1 hour ago, hrmaddie said:

Primary concern is getting dickhead off the road.  Should my daughter go ahead and file and claim or wait and see what the police may or may not do, probably doesn't matter.  If he denies hitting her with his insurance company I am guessing if we want the car fixed we would have to file with our insurance company?  I could play them the 911 call to prove he rear ended her.

I would consider any insurance/damage claim a separate matter from any sort of criminal charges, because it is.  Having both going on simultaneously is more an issue for the perp than for you and your daughter.

I can't really fault the cop.  When there's a crime with two witnesses, the victim and the perp, and hardly any forensic evidence to explain what happened, no injuries, a DA is unlikely to file charges and it's even hard for a cop to write a reasonable ticket.

[Updawg 2286]

Well at least she is safe and learned a couple of lessons on what not to do

She did good calling 911 though and getting the license plate

[Dahobbs 17682]

4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I would consider any insurance/damage claim a separate matter from any sort of criminal charges, because it is.  Having both going on simultaneously is more an issue for the perp than for you and your daughter.

I can't really fault the cop.  When there's a crime with two witnesses, the victim and the perp, and hardly any forensic evidence to explain what happened, no injuries, a DA is unlikely to file charges and it's even hard for a cop to write a reasonable ticket.

While I agree, my advice if not worried about the insurance money is going to be go public and tweet some local news groups and the cops with his information and that the cops did nothing. I wouldn't do that if I cared about the insurance money because insurance doesn't cover willful conduct. In my view, this was assault/battery with a deadly weapon, plus intentionally terrorizing another and putting them in fear of for their life. And it sounds like the fucker admitted it to the cops when he said he wanted to teach her a lesson. 

[Enchubben 5510]

This is a safe space where you share the license plate info and we make this guys life hell.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21921]

Go buy a junker.  Park in front of his house. When he leaves his house ram him with the junker.   Get out and tell him you are teaching him a lesson and the next lesson will involve a Molotov cocktail through his window.

[F250 28820]

You need need to garrote this person to win back your family's honor.

 

[RPM 26355]

On 5/26/2022 at 1:17 PM, Quagmire said:

Get a dash cam they have ones they video front and back. Then you’d have your proof an the event of any accident

This

[Billy Pilgrim 1984]

In this day and age everyone has a camera on their phone. As soon as she stopped and guy got out of his car, she should’ve started filming.

[Jkwellborn 6745]

Piss on his car to assert dominance.

[StassneyHorn 6637]

This is the kind of shit news stations love. Contact whatever local affiliate there is and provide the audio of the call.

[burntorangebongos 10752]

Post his info here. We tell him we are anonymous and ask him if he got off to acting like barney fife and scaring a young woman. We get on his LinkedIn and ask him there and tell him we might need to tell his HR to teach him a lesson. 

Something like that.

[RollLeft 5045]

I must have cutoff a douche, on I-10, in a bmw last week.  He decided to pull up next to me on my driver side and rolled down his passenger window.  He yelled something and gave me the bird.  I laughed out loud.  That must have pissed him off more because he then pulled ahead of me and slammed his brakes.  I simply moved to the lane to my left.  He then slowed down to be on my passenger side now.  He rolled down his driver window, was still triggered, and start yelling some more.  I caught him mouthing "You pussy" and then invited me to pull over. 

At this point I gave him the thumbs up, slowed down and got behind him.  We crossed three lanes to the next exit as he continued to waive me over.  We were exiting when I didn't, and he did.  He almost wrecked his car trying to swerve back onto the hwy.   As i drove past him i rolled my passenger window down and gave that bitch a big smirk.  He brandished the glock he was already holding in his hand then aimed it at me outside his window.  I suspected as much.  Something told me he was "brave" with reason.  Thats why you don't pull over.  People are not only crazy they will kill you for their inability to cope with their fucking insecurities and frail emotions.  He to probably wanted to "teach me lesson".  The irony to me was that only a real pussy pulls out a gun because someone cut you off or laughed at you.  What a little bitch.      

Edited June 8, 2022 by RollLeft

[C-Man 27262]

If the damage is minimal to daughter's car DO NOT -- I repeat DO NOT -- call your insurance carrier until you have to. Call his and file a claim directly. If you get something out of them, that's great. Any damage less than $3000 after deductible is filed, you're better off paying out of pocket anyways. First thing is go get an estimate and then you can decide what to do.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

Quote

and he tells them he was trying to teach her lesson

I never understand why anyone tries to use their car to teach someone else a lesson. It’s bad for everyone and these is no lesson.

A buddy of mine is ok with speeding but he’s decided what is the max safe speed on Houston freeway left lanes. Let’s say 80 or 85. (Maybe it’s higher.) Anyway if he sees that someone wants to exceed his determined max speed, he purposefully gets in the left lane to slow them down aka teach them a lesson.

I’ve told him several times that if someone wants to drive 100+, let them fly past you. It’s safer for you if they’re 1 mile head causing a problem for the people up there. That car trying to get around you at these high speeds creates an unnecessary risk. And finally who cares.

[elfenix 34332]

On 5/26/2022 at 1:15 PM, TwiceHorn said:

As a general proposition, you don't get "intangible" (pain and suffering, etc.) damages for property damage via insurance (or a lawsuit).  You would have to come up with an injury of some sort.   In many collisions, there are actual injuries, thought to be nothing more than "whiplash," that deserve a little treatment, but get blown off nine times out of ten, sometimes for the worse.  This, however, doesn't sound like one of those.

"out of state" so maybe different elements

[CHIEF 5095]

On 5/30/2022 at 8:06 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I never understand why anyone tries to use their car to teach someone else a lesson. It’s bad for everyone and these is no lesson.

A buddy of mine is ok with speeding but he’s decided what is the max safe speed on Houston freeway left lanes. Let’s say 80 or 85. (Maybe it’s higher.) Anyway if he sees that someone wants to exceed his determined max speed, he purposefully gets in the left lane to slow them down aka teach them a lesson.

I’ve told him several times that if someone wants to drive 100+, let them fly past you. It’s safer for you if they’re 1 mile head causing a problem for the people up there. That car trying to get around you at these high speeds creates an unnecessary risk. And finally who cares.

Exactly, if someone is driving faster than I am, they have their reasons. I'm not gonna keep someone from getting to the hospital before a loved one dies, or misses a "once in a lifetime" job interview.

CHIEF

[Armybrat 40912]

On 6/2/2022 at 9:01 AM, CHIEF said:

Exactly, if someone is driving faster than I am, they have their reasons. I'm not gonna keep someone from getting to the hospital before a loved one dies, or misses a "once in a lifetime" job interview.

CHIEF

Same here,but I’m not getting out of the way until it is safe to do so.

FWIW - I generally drive at least 5-10 mph over the speed limit, so am not exactly a Sun City road hog.

[elfenix 34332]

5 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Sun City road hog.

what does south austin's mom have to do with this?

[RPM 26355]

On 6/2/2022 at 9:01 AM, CHIEF said:

Exactly, if someone is driving faster than I am, they have their reasons. I'm not gonna keep someone from getting to the hospital before a loved one dies, or misses a "once in a lifetime" job interview.

CHIEF

HEB may be about to close.

[CHIEF 5095]

I'm also of the belief, that rural highways in desolate areas, should have no speed limit. It should be perfectly legal to drive as fast as you want on Hwy. 114 between Benjamin and Lubbock. The lanes are wide, there are passing lanes. I've been passed by cars I know were going at least 120, and it never felt unsafe, or scary. I mean it happens all the time on the Autobahn in Germany. 

CHIEF

[elfenix 34332]

2 hours ago, CHIEF said:

I'm also of the belief, that rural highways in desolate areas, should have no speed limit. It should be perfectly legal to drive as fast as you want on Hwy. 114 between Benjamin and Lubbock. The lanes are wide, there are passing lanes. I've been passed by cars I know were going at least 120, and it never felt unsafe, or scary. I mean it happens all the time on the Autobahn in Germany. 

CHIEF

i'm for adopting german driving standards and car inspections.  get half the drivers and cars off the road.

[CHIEF 5095]

I've parked our Ranger at the gate of our deer lease, and averaged over 100 mph driving the wife's car to the gate. It is 210 miles, three and a half hours in my F350 with gooseneck, two hours in her car. Always felt safe.

CHIEF

[WhatTheBuck 28798]

On 5/30/2022 at 9:06 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I’ve told him several times that if someone wants to drive 100+, let them fly past you. It’s safer for you if they’re 1 mile head causing a problem for the people up there. That car trying to get around you at these high speeds creates an unnecessary risk. And finally who cares.

If someone is driving a lot faster than I am, I want them in front of me. I’ll speed up for awhile because I’ve got a blocker in front of me. If there’s a cop up ahead, he’ll be the one to get pulled over. 

[Prepuce of Doom 21103]

8 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

If someone is driving a lot faster than I am, I want them in front of me. I’ll speed up for awhile because I’ve got a blocker in front of me. If there’s a cop up ahead, he’ll be the one to get pulled over. 

Same. I drive fast enough that I rarely have a blocker of my own though - I'm usually someone else's rabbit. I don't mind running point, but it's annoying as shit when followers don't keep a reasonable distance. If you ride up my ass, camp out in my blind spot, get in my way and prevent me from changing lanes or passing someone ahead, or just generally seem like a moron, I'm going to leave you behind at the next opportunity. 

[Helobious 9464]

Similar event happened to a coworker. Road rage can happen between anyone, but it sure seems like there’s some men that will get a lot bolder when they see it’s a young woman driving, like my coworker or OP’s daughter. They’re gigantic pussies that want to make themselves feel big.