[masraum]

I've had a couple of weird experiences. I'm sure I've pissed a few people off in my time, but I've also had folks flip out on me without me having done anything to them.

Here in Houston there are lots of double turn lanes. On the way home one night, I was turning right from the left turn lane and an expedition was turning right from the right turn lane. I still had my 911 at the time.

She decided to turn right into my lane where I was. Fortunately, there was a paved median, so I swerved into that and hit the brakes to drop back behind her. I got behind her, saw that there was room to get around her in the other lane (the lane she had started in), so I pulled out and started to go around her. At that point, she gunned the gas and got next to another vehicle in the lane that I had changed into. When she got next to the other vehicle she hit her brakes and paced them until she turned.

Another time, I was driving down the road in my miata on a 35mph road where they were building new subdivisions. I was probably going around 40-45. I looked in the rear view to see a Ford truck bearing down on me at about 70mph. He swerved at the last minute around me and then cut back through my lane to get in front of me and jabbed on his brakes. I have no idea where he came from. I just stayed behind him for a while and he seemed to be driving sane. So after a bit I slowly changed lanes and started to pull along side to pass. As I got next to him, he swerved over into my lane and started yelling and shaking his arm at me out the window. He didn't stop, so I slowly started edging closer to his truck until he swerved back into his lane and left me alone. I never reacted or flipped him off or anything.

About 3 months later I ran into the same guy in the same truck on the way home again. I got off of the freeway onto a 3 lane frontage road. I was in lane 1, he was in lane 2 and other traffic was in lane 3. I was slowly passing him, I guess, until he recognized my car at which point he gunned the gas and swerved in front of me. I tried to speed up to get past him, but he sped up too, so I slowed down and went behind him into the far right lane. He was slowed behind traffic, but eventually came along side and got along side me in my lane like he was trying to run me off the road. Then he swerved back and got in front of me several cars up in traffic. While we were sitting waiting for the light to turn, he came back and stopped about 3 car lengths from me screaming about getting my license number saying that he had friends that were cops. He was a little short guy, a bit stocky with a flat top and the collar of his polo shirt flipped up. He was in a big Ford "King Ranch" pick-up truck. I suspect he had a bit of a Napolean thing going on.

He was the scariest person I'd ever experienced on the road. Fortunately, I don't drive that route any more.