My First Experience with a Very Aggressive Driver (Alexandria, Reston: home, neighborhood)

[ChristineVA]

I'm still a little stunned! Today while leaving DC (SE/SW Freeway) toward VA, I was on the left ramp that will take you into the HOV lanes to cross the 14th Street Bridge.

For some reason, everyone goes really slow through there and then it clears out when you get two lanes. It can be aggravating but whatever.

So today, we (the carpool) are following along with all the other lemmings and I hear the car behind us laying on his horn. I mean, really, laying on his horn. I said to my carpooler: Is he beeping at us? We couldn't figure out why except for the fact that we were NOT tailgating the car in front of us but had about 2 car lengths in between and he was pissed.

When we finally got to two lanes, he whips around, pulls in front of us and slams on his brakes. Did that two times and, yes, we almost hit him. He finally decides to leave us alone and speeds off. I continue to watch him tailgating others, driving on the shoulder, etc. I tried to figure out how to report him, but I couldn't manage it in the car, on the phone, without my old lady reading glasses. Come to find out, it's #77 on your cell phone.

So, is that effective to call or just a lost cause? My carpool buddy swears he flashed a gun as he passed by but I don't know about that but I was trying very hard not to look at him or make any eye contact.

I am fuming about it though.

[ACWhite]

Horrible behavior. I'm glad he didn't cause an accident and that you and your passenger weren't hurt.

I'm in the camp that says it's probably best just to get away from people like that--maybe I've watched a few too many Judge Judy road rage episodes.

It's too bad your passenger couldn't take a photo of his rear license plate and call #77 at the time. Is your passenger willing to get involved now? If so, maybe you and s/he could make a police report and state what you witnessed but unless the bad driver was reported by others, or caused other problems, they might not be able to do anything. I don't know how the police who would have jurisdiction would respond after-the-fact.

[16 Acres]

Sorry to hear of your experience. If getting his License Plate was not possible, I would had at least called in a description of the car and approx location.

I'm a little puzzled though why your carpooler could not have been more help with identification as well as made the call for you.

[Carlingtonian]

Wow--that is way uncool. I'll admit I get very agitated when I'm behind anyone going slow in the left lane--but going around and then slamming on the brakes--that's just dumb.

Glad everyone is OK.

[ChristineVA]

I was the passenger and we did get his license plate and make/model of the car. I had no idea who to call so just hit 911, explained that it was NOT a true emergency but that we have witnessed very aggressive and dangerous driving. The operator gave me a non emergency number. Called that and it went to voicemail (can you believe it). So I called 411 to get a number of the state police. They came up with the Mt. Vernon state police barracks. Rolling my eyes, I called that and got into some recorded thing of theirs. Very frustrating. All the while, I didn't have my reading glasses with me and I could not search anything on my phone. By the time I was starting to figure out what to do, we had totally lost sight of driver (somewhere around King St). He was in HOV but I could no longer pick out the car.

So I did give up, get home and look it all up and saw that it would be very hard to do anything after the fact.

[ChristineVA]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Wow--that is way uncool. I'll admit I get very agitated when I'm behind anyone going slow in the left lane--but going around and then slamming on the brakes--that's just dumb.

Glad everyone is OK.

The point is, ALL the cars were going slow and even if we had sped up to fill in the two car lengths, he would not have gotten anywhere. There was just no where to go.

[themommy]

Go ahead and call him in. I don't know if the police make reports of those kinds of things or not and keep them in a database somewhere, but if they do, then at least there'd be some supporting evidence of previous aggressive driving if someone else calls him in in the future.

So sorry you had to experience that! And even gladder that you weren't hurt.

Angry drivers can be so scary. Once when I was in college I did something to tick off another driver and he followed me all the way to my (dark and devoid of other people) college parking lot. I was on my way home from work and it was late. He pulled in right behind my car, got out, and started yelling at me about having cut him off, which I had no recollection of doing, but wow! Overreact much? It was very scary -- he was very tall and broad and angry, and I'm really short. I learned an important lesson that night about being aware of who's driving behind you. There've been several times in the intervening years that I've driven around avoiding my neighborhood just to be sure the car behind me wasn't intentionally tailing me.

[ICS67]

Sorry to hear about your experience.

Fairfax County Police used to have a program through which you could report on-line dangerous and aggressive driving (you needed to provide a license plate number, car color/make, time and place, description of the driving, etc.). Although FCPD couldn't issue a ticket since a law enforcement officer didn't witness the behavior in question, a letter was sent to the vehicle owner that they had been reported. Maybe it put a little of the fear of God in them, maybe not. Unfortunately, that program was eliminated due to budget cuts.

So, these days you are encouraged to report such aggressive/dangerous driving to the FCPD non-emergency number of 703-691-2131 as it happens. (Obviously, if someone is in true road rage form, call 911). I reported a driver who passed me on a double yellow line on a downhill curve in Reston (Soapstone), but because I waited about 20 minutes to do so, the non-emergency dispatcher said there wasn't much they could do at that point. Had I reported it immediately, he said they would have alerted police cars in the vicinity to keep an eye out for this idiot.

Since you got the license plate and car make/model of this aggressive driver, I would still report him to the police if I were you. Who knows, maybe the police can tie that information to an outstanding warrant or something similar.

[NOVA_guy]

Sorry to hear you had to go through that. That is insane and kind of scary.

I don't know what it is, I guess the traffic that makes people act legitimately insane on the highway. And we're all frustrated and ready to get to our destination but there's no justification to act like that.

[ChristineVA]

So, how would you determine which jurisdiction to call? The driver has Virginia tags but started the behavior in DC and at last sight, Alexandria I guess.

The person riding with me has a son who is on the PWC police force and he was going to ask him for some advice tonight, even though definitely not his jurisdiction. I was thinking it would be state police since they patrol 395.