Almost no one knows how to fight, at least in America. And yes, that's a good thing for public safety, if we did not all have guns and use them instead.
I've seen more road rage fights than I can count, though not so much in recent years. People use to be angrier in the old days around here. One that has always stuck in my mind was during a drive to Malibu, I'm going to say early '90s. As I passed UCLA and Bel Air on Sunset, a group of about 4 young dudes on crotch rocket motorcycles joined in from UCLA. It was before the helmet law took effect in 1992, this is significant. They all looked beefy, like football players and they were not wearing any protective armor, just t-shirts and flannel shirts blowing in the wind. Typical jocks, riding like they owned the road but having a good time. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday and traffic picked up when we hit PCH going towards Malibu. On weekends, it's always packed going that way.
I can't remember what I was driving but I more or less kept up w them. We were on PCH and the four of them were riding really slow in a blocking formation, just shooting the schit without a care about anyone backed up behind them. They were the kings of all they surveyed, you know the type. There were two young tourist guys in a rental car behind them and ahead of me, can't remember how I knew this...maybe I was next to them in traffic and heard the Swedish or Dutch being spoken through open windows? Like I said, traffic crawling, warm day. The driver was a tall, slim blond guy. Didn't look like a tough guy, as opposed to the guys on the bikes, who looked tough.
The tourist guy got tired of the bikes holding up traffic, (it had started to move ahead of the bikes), so he honked at them. One of the motorcycle dudes looked back at him, there might have been a middle finger raised and then the bike dude dropped back so that he was next to the driver's window and spit on the tourist and then accelerated to catch up w buddies. You could see them laughing. The spit looked like it hit the driver's face, (I was right behind them, watching the whole thing), he got enraged and took chase. I remember thinking that he was crazy to chase down four large bullies and he was going to get badly beaten.
The bikes and the rental car both accelerated and I lost sight of them momentarily. When I caught up to them, they were all stopped in the center median. The tourist guy was in a fighting stance, (like karate), and the guy who spit on him was laying on the ground with his head in both hands. The other three were all backing off with their hands up in a "please don't hit/kick me" gesture. I was able to get a better look at all of them out of and off of their vehicles and the tourist was slender and all the MC guys were big.
Man, what I'd have given to see that fight! If it happened now it would be a viral cell phone video. No one had a video camera in those days. The one thing I can say is that it was short. I think that the four jocks actually learned a valuable life lesson that day and I doubt that any of them have spit on anyone since. They might even be nice people now.
The end.
