Road Rage turns deadly in Portland

[DancesWithWife]

A road rage incident in Portland has turned deadly after drivers exchanged obscene gestures to each other. Evidently, the person who was killed, decided to confront the driver and tapped on his window of his car. I see road rage every day but not to this extent.

 

A female driver almost hit me, after not stopping at a stop sign. I made the mistake of pointing to the stop sign, which totally set the woman off. It was a reaction to show her there was a stop sign. She started giving me the same gesture as the drivers in this story did. As I looked in the rear-view mirror, she had a young boy about 10 years old in her front passenger seat observing her behavior. I thought if this how she handles herself out in public, how is she in private? The same logic applies to the other drivers in the story. It's an angry world that does not take much to set it off!

 

Washington man, 47, IDed as victim in alleged road rage shooting in downtown Portland - oregonlive.com

[Witness1970]

I used to leave work late at night a lot.  I came down a ramp onto HWY 316 once and was merging with traffic.  There were 2 cars in the left lane behind as I merged into the right lane.  The car in the rear decides to move into the right lane and pass the other car.  He ran up behind me as I was halfway up the merging lane.  Apparently, it upset him.  after i completed merging, he passed me and got in front.  He got halfway off the road in front of me as my car had been when I was merging.  He drove that way for a short distance then got back on the road.  A short distance further he got all the way off the road and was driving on the side of the road.  I knew not to pass him because he could decide to reenter the road at any time.  Suddenly he got back on the road and he was taking the same off-ramp I was.  As I turned, there was an SUV suddenly hit the brakes beside me.  I did not know why.  As I turned, I saw blue lights come on behind me and I moved over to the right.  The unmarked police SUV sped past me and stopped the driver who had been driving so recklessly.

 

Another time at the same exit there was a sign at the end of the ramp that said, "Keep Moving."  There was a police car sitting next to the keep moving sign at the end of the ramp, obviously waiting for oncoming traffic which was not even in the lane that he was supposed to be entering.  Behind me, there was a curve and I feared that some big SUV was going to come around the curve and hit me because he knew people were not supposed to stop at the Keep Moving sign.  The police car finally moved on and everything was OK.

 

I was on my way home another night and was on Sugarloaf Parkway.  A car went by me rather fast.  I decided not to blind the driver of the car so I dimmed my headlights as he passed.  The car suddenly slowed down as if he was bothered because I dimmed my lights.  He got right beside me and matched my speed for a while. Then he got behind me in the lane I was in and followed along for a while.  Suddenly he sped up and was coming at my rear bumper.  He swerved around me, barely missing my rear bumper, and passed me on my side of the center lane. When I got near the end of Sugarloaf Parkway, I could see him sitting in the right turn lane, waiting.  I turned onto a small side road named Johnson Road, but I knew that Johnson Road was only about a quarter mile long and had a 90 turn that would take me to the same road he was likely on.  I made a U-turn and went back to Sugarloaf Parkway.  He was gone as I hoped he would be so I continued on home without incident.

 

On another occasion, a car came up behind me on a 2-lane and kept the lights on bright.  There was about a mile of straightaway ahead and no traffic so I slowed down to let him pass.  I was doing the speed limit (55) and I was not sure how fast he was going when he ran up behind me.  Instead of passing me he got right on my bumper with lights still on bright and sat down on the horn.  I was doing about 45 in a 55 speed limit, but he refused to pass.  Then when I got up to my turn I gave a left turn signal.  This guy who refused to pass me when he had plenty of time, cut across so that he could turn onto the same road I was going on.

 

More times than I could count I would give a turn signal to change lanes and the person in the other lane would speed up to prevent me from changing lanes.  One time a person sped up so much that she almost hit the car in front of her in her lane.

 

I could tell many more stories, but let me say that driving on the outskirts of Atlanta Georgia was always an adventure.

[Miss Bea]

Long, long time ago, a situation happened to a Person I know. The other car pulled up beside them, and pointed a gun at them. Eventually moved on, with no altercation.

I made up my mind, be as invisible as I can. No eye contact, pull over, if I can. Just really mind MY business. It’s too scary, and a situation can come out of nowhere. 
People are just on the edge of madness, and life has no value for so many. Do not mess with them!