The One With the Brake-Checking Genius

Earlier today I was driving down a dual carriageway near where I live. It’s a 50 mile an hour road, three lanes, but at the moment the right-hand lane is closed. So effectively, the middle lane becomes the right lane, and the left lane stays as the left lane. Simple enough in theory.

I’m driving along behind a taxi, and there’s another car ahead of that which has been drifting between lanes for a little while. Not aggressively, not dangerously, just… confused. You could tell they weren’t entirely sure where they were meant to be, especially with the cones closing off the right-hand lane.

There’s a right turn coming up, and normally the lane we’re in would be for turning right, so I assumed that’s what they were trying to do. Eventually, they move into position, and then, for reasons known only to them, they slow down to about 20 miles an hour.

Naturally, the taxi in front of me has to slam on the brakes. I slam on mine. The car behind me slams on theirs. It’s a full chain reaction of “oh no, this isn’t ideal.”

The difference is, the car behind me decides this is somehow my fault.

What follows is a masterclass in terrible decision-making. He starts tailgating me aggressively, speeding right up to my bumper and then slamming his brakes on, over and over again. If anything had happened in front of me at that point, he would have gone straight into the back of me without hesitation.

I can see him in the rear-view mirror losing his mind. Shouting, gesturing, leaning out of the window, giving me the finger. Presumably also complimenting my hair, because I can’t imagine what else he’d be so worked up about.

This goes on for a while, and then he decides he’s had enough and needs to “teach me a lesson.”

His plan for this lesson is to swing out into the left lane, accelerate hard, pull up alongside me, shout something unintelligible while continuing to gesture wildly, and then swerve back in front of me.

Unfortunately for him, there’s still a taxi directly in front of me.

He doesn’t seem to have noticed this.

He cuts in and drives straight into the rear passenger side of the taxi, pushing it off the road and into the cones in the closed lane.

At this point, everything stops. Because of course it does.

I pull over, as you would, because someone has just crashed right in front of me. I was lucky not to end up in the middle of it.

The driver who caused the crash reverses slightly, which is already questionable, and then immediately drives off. Just leaves. Apparently the lesson was over.

Meanwhile, the original car that caused all the confusion in the first place carries on completely unaware. Gets to the traffic lights, doesn’t turn right, goes straight through… and runs a red light for good measure. Luckily, no one else was affected by that.

I get out and go over to the taxi driver. He’s already out of the car and, thankfully, he’s fine. I explain what happened, although he’d already seen most of it in his mirror. He’s got dashcam footage, which is doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of evidence, and I give him my details just in case.

His car is still drivable, so he says he’ll call the police and sort it from there. There’s nothing else he needs from me, so I head on my way.

So yeah, if you were driving down that road earlier, aggressively tailgating someone, overtaking to prove a point, and then immediately driving into the side of a taxi before fleeing the scene… you might want to keep an eye on your phone.