Soldato
I live out in the sticks. I mean, I'm 10 miles from the nearest traffic light.
I'm on my way home from work (I get off at 12:45 at night) and some idiot coming the other way has his high beams on. I give him a flick of mine, he dips them and then turns them right back on again!!! So I give him a double flick of mine. So this numpty swerves into my lane!!
I manage to keep it enough on the road to not lose complete control as the two passenger tyres ended up in about a foot of snow (thank goodness for Cooper Weathermaster tyres!!).
I figure I've just survived a possible nasty encounter, but no!! It's not over!! The moron pulls a bootlegger 180 behind me and starts coming after me!!
Now, I'm driving a rusted out 1986 Toyota Tercel 4WD station wagon (I believe you folks call them estates). He's driving (I think) a newer model Honda Civic. I outweigh him by quite a margin, but he DEFINATELY has me beat in the power to weight ratio department!! So outrunning him is out of the question, but I have the advantage that my car is worth about $50 and his is still probably owned by the bank.....
This idiot follows me (about 6 inches off my back bumper flashing his lights and blowing his horn) for the next 5 miles. He stupidly follows me into the sticks so he has absolutely NO IDEA where the hell he is, but I know exactly.
So I'm blasting down the road at just under 75, click it down to third gear, yank on the handbrake and shift into 4WD. He has all four tyres maxing out ABS trying not to come in and say HI through the tailgate, I yank the wheel over to turn on to my (ice covered) street. He goes right past. I jet down the 200 yard of my street to my driveway, downshift into second and then 1st to navigate the turn, pitch all four tyres into a drift slide and scream the 150 feet to my garage. By this time the idiot is trying to gain enough traction on my street to catch up. He slides right past my driveway, then backs up.
By this time I'm already out of my car, my wife has heard all the commotion and come to see what's going on. She immediately (and correctly) surmises something is wrong and grabs the phone and calls the county sherrif.
I'm clamoring in the garage for my lockboxes. He pulls up behind my car (with two 150W security lights shining right in his face, me in a dark garage) and climbs out. Only to hear the double click of the .303 Lee Enfield rifle chambering an armour piercing round. He (first sign of intelligence he's shown) freezes on the spot. I tell him he is directly in the sights of a high powered military rifle with an armour piercing round in the chamber, my wife is on the phone with the sherrif, and if he so much as twitches, the first round goes through his engine block. If he continues to move, the next round goes through him. He makes the second intelligent choice of his evening and remains perfectly still.
We stand like this for about 20 minutes (it's -9oC outside right now). He's in a t-shirt. I'm in a heavy parka type jacket. The sherrif arrives, notices the barrel of the rifle sticking out of the garage, and announces on the car's loudspeaker "Put the weapon down!!"
As soon as I do Doctor Nobrains launches into a tirade about what I thought I was doing with my lights.....
After a couple minutes of him spouting off, he stops. I ask him is he finished, because it is now my turn. I ask him if he understands what the little blue light on his instrument panel that looks suspiciously like a headlight is for. Without giving him a chance to respond, I tell him it generally means that your highbeams are on and they are blinding people coming the other way. It is also illegal to have them on within 1000 feet of another moving vehicle. His response is "I don't give a ****". Sherrif asks if he failed to lower his high beams. Numpty responds "Hell yeah". Sherrif writes down first charge. I then explain that deliberately swerving into oncoming traffic with the intent to run them off the road is considered attempted vehicular manslaughter. I then also explained that driving for over 5 miles within 6 inches of another car that is doing 60+mph trying to get away from you isn't exactly friendly. And to top it all off, he wasn't invited onto my private property, in which case he is currently trespassing. Under Minnesota law, I have every right to cap his ass right there and then. Sherrif says, "You're right." Numpty (I think) soils himself. Sherrif then says, "but you're not going to, right?"
"Nope, I'll let you handle it from here."
"Cool, I've heard enough to at least keep him until Wednesday afternoon until the judge can see him. Can we leave the car here until a wrecker can impound it?"
"Sure, if I need to move it, I've got the truck."
"Ok."
"Thanks Brian." (yes, I know the sherrif on a first name basis from working with him at the airport)
Numpty looks like he's going to pass out as he realises that he's going to jail and his car is parked right behind my 1981 Chevrolet 1/2 ton 4X4 pickup truck and it dawns on him just what I mean by "moving his car with my truck"......
Ever seen a monster truck rally? :evilgrin:
So, here I sit after giving a thorough statement to the sherrif (that Mr Idiot did not deny), with enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to kill a horse, a nice pretty Honda Civic just got hooked up to the tow truck, and a wife shaking in her shoes.....
I just needed to type it all out before I exploded from excitement!!
And to think I thought this whole day was rather uneventful!!
I better go see about calming the wife down. She's no longer at the hysterical stage, so it's safe to get within arm's reach of her now......
I'm on my way home from work (I get off at 12:45 at night) and some idiot coming the other way has his high beams on. I give him a flick of mine, he dips them and then turns them right back on again!!! So I give him a double flick of mine. So this numpty swerves into my lane!!
I manage to keep it enough on the road to not lose complete control as the two passenger tyres ended up in about a foot of snow (thank goodness for Cooper Weathermaster tyres!!).
I figure I've just survived a possible nasty encounter, but no!! It's not over!! The moron pulls a bootlegger 180 behind me and starts coming after me!!
Now, I'm driving a rusted out 1986 Toyota Tercel 4WD station wagon (I believe you folks call them estates). He's driving (I think) a newer model Honda Civic. I outweigh him by quite a margin, but he DEFINATELY has me beat in the power to weight ratio department!! So outrunning him is out of the question, but I have the advantage that my car is worth about $50 and his is still probably owned by the bank.....
This idiot follows me (about 6 inches off my back bumper flashing his lights and blowing his horn) for the next 5 miles. He stupidly follows me into the sticks so he has absolutely NO IDEA where the hell he is, but I know exactly.
So I'm blasting down the road at just under 75, click it down to third gear, yank on the handbrake and shift into 4WD. He has all four tyres maxing out ABS trying not to come in and say HI through the tailgate, I yank the wheel over to turn on to my (ice covered) street. He goes right past. I jet down the 200 yard of my street to my driveway, downshift into second and then 1st to navigate the turn, pitch all four tyres into a drift slide and scream the 150 feet to my garage. By this time the idiot is trying to gain enough traction on my street to catch up. He slides right past my driveway, then backs up.
By this time I'm already out of my car, my wife has heard all the commotion and come to see what's going on. She immediately (and correctly) surmises something is wrong and grabs the phone and calls the county sherrif.
I'm clamoring in the garage for my lockboxes. He pulls up behind my car (with two 150W security lights shining right in his face, me in a dark garage) and climbs out. Only to hear the double click of the .303 Lee Enfield rifle chambering an armour piercing round. He (first sign of intelligence he's shown) freezes on the spot. I tell him he is directly in the sights of a high powered military rifle with an armour piercing round in the chamber, my wife is on the phone with the sherrif, and if he so much as twitches, the first round goes through his engine block. If he continues to move, the next round goes through him. He makes the second intelligent choice of his evening and remains perfectly still.
We stand like this for about 20 minutes (it's -9oC outside right now). He's in a t-shirt. I'm in a heavy parka type jacket. The sherrif arrives, notices the barrel of the rifle sticking out of the garage, and announces on the car's loudspeaker "Put the weapon down!!"
As soon as I do Doctor Nobrains launches into a tirade about what I thought I was doing with my lights.....
After a couple minutes of him spouting off, he stops. I ask him is he finished, because it is now my turn. I ask him if he understands what the little blue light on his instrument panel that looks suspiciously like a headlight is for. Without giving him a chance to respond, I tell him it generally means that your highbeams are on and they are blinding people coming the other way. It is also illegal to have them on within 1000 feet of another moving vehicle. His response is "I don't give a ****". Sherrif asks if he failed to lower his high beams. Numpty responds "Hell yeah". Sherrif writes down first charge. I then explain that deliberately swerving into oncoming traffic with the intent to run them off the road is considered attempted vehicular manslaughter. I then also explained that driving for over 5 miles within 6 inches of another car that is doing 60+mph trying to get away from you isn't exactly friendly. And to top it all off, he wasn't invited onto my private property, in which case he is currently trespassing. Under Minnesota law, I have every right to cap his ass right there and then. Sherrif says, "You're right." Numpty (I think) soils himself. Sherrif then says, "but you're not going to, right?"
"Nope, I'll let you handle it from here."
"Cool, I've heard enough to at least keep him until Wednesday afternoon until the judge can see him. Can we leave the car here until a wrecker can impound it?"
"Sure, if I need to move it, I've got the truck."
"Ok."
"Thanks Brian." (yes, I know the sherrif on a first name basis from working with him at the airport)
Numpty looks like he's going to pass out as he realises that he's going to jail and his car is parked right behind my 1981 Chevrolet 1/2 ton 4X4 pickup truck and it dawns on him just what I mean by "moving his car with my truck"......
Ever seen a monster truck rally? :evilgrin:
So, here I sit after giving a thorough statement to the sherrif (that Mr Idiot did not deny), with enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to kill a horse, a nice pretty Honda Civic just got hooked up to the tow truck, and a wife shaking in her shoes.....
I just needed to type it all out before I exploded from excitement!!
And to think I thought this whole day was rather uneventful!!
I better go see about calming the wife down. She's no longer at the hysterical stage, so it's safe to get within arm's reach of her now......
