Blimey, I've just been in a bit of a road rage situation, and although still fuming, I really think I need to learn how to calm down when these things happen..
I was just accelerating away from the M4 tolls into Wales, it's a huge funnel of 12 lanes into 3 over about 1/4 mile.
The lanes are split into roughly groups of 4, and each four funnel down into one of the normal motorway lanes.
Anyway, there I am just getting upto speed, and I am in the right hand set of lanes, filtering into what will be the fast lane of the motorway. I was doing about 70 and coming alongside someone that was in the middle set of lanes, which filter into the middle lane of the motorway, at this point we are just at the end of the filtering section and it's normal motorway.
I am now about 1/4 of a car length in front of him, overtaking in the outside lane, he seems to ignore the white lane markings, and just careers into my lane. My 6th sense went off, as I could see him drifting over a little before he really started to change lanes, I was in 4th and being that I was 1/4 of a car length ahead, my instinct wasn't to brake, but to nail it, I accelerated hard, and swerved to the right, I was over the far white line into the verge, but did manage to just get in front of him before he hit me.
My girfriend screamed, as she thought he had hit us, although I felt no 'bump', I gently braked as I wasn't sure what was going on, only to see this person slam their anchors on and weave about a bit, clearly he hadn't seen me, and the sight of my brake lights must have woken him up, as he seemed to very much over react to just my brake lights, I hardly touched the pedal..
So a bit shaken, I carried on, with no time to feel angry, I thought that although close, it hadn't come to an accident so it wasn't too bad..
Anyway, I want get off at the next junction, and I move into the very long filter lane. The car that nearly hit me started to overtake and I obviously glanced over, expecting to see some sheepish looking person, and I had no intention of being nasty, but OMG, His missus, and some 18-20 year old in the back is giving me severe signs/grief/gesticulations...
THAT WAS IT!!!! I just flipped from shaken but calm to WTF, you nearly cause a bad accident and you think I'm a *******???
I then indicated, pulled back onto the motorway from the filter lane, and went into a bit of a point proving mission, I came up the inside of him (I know it was illegal, that didn't seem to come to mind at the time), rolled my window down, they rolled their windows down, and OMG, I've never heard a woman swear so badly in my life (and that's saying something), the guy in the back was mouthing off big style, even though we where doing 60ish, I had no problem hearing them.. so I scream back at them in such a violent manner (Not threatening them with anything, just telling them in no uncertain terms they had just nearly hit me, and can ***** ***** **** themselves. I thought I heard the guy in the back threaten me, which totally pushed me over the edge, I wanted to ram him off the road and kill him, I could feel my blood boil, i can't explain how I felt, just so angry that he'd nearly hit me and thought I was the one in the wrong that needed 'sorting out'.. I then said something, which I can't remember except using some really menacing words, etc, and absolutely screamed it at them.. whatever it was, it must have worked, there faces dropped, and they wound their windows up. I pulled off at the next junction, and went home.
I was expecting a roasting of the girlfriend, but to my surprise she was quite angry with them as well, but I still felt really ashamed and a bit remorseful..
I am sure plenty of people get in these road rage scenarios, but what surprised me is the feeling of anger I had, almost blind rage, now I've calmed down, if I saw the bloke again, I'd probably apologise, it's not the way to act, no matter who's fault it is..
I was just accelerating away from the M4 tolls into Wales, it's a huge funnel of 12 lanes into 3 over about 1/4 mile.
The lanes are split into roughly groups of 4, and each four funnel down into one of the normal motorway lanes.
Anyway, there I am just getting upto speed, and I am in the right hand set of lanes, filtering into what will be the fast lane of the motorway. I was doing about 70 and coming alongside someone that was in the middle set of lanes, which filter into the middle lane of the motorway, at this point we are just at the end of the filtering section and it's normal motorway.
I am now about 1/4 of a car length in front of him, overtaking in the outside lane, he seems to ignore the white lane markings, and just careers into my lane. My 6th sense went off, as I could see him drifting over a little before he really started to change lanes, I was in 4th and being that I was 1/4 of a car length ahead, my instinct wasn't to brake, but to nail it, I accelerated hard, and swerved to the right, I was over the far white line into the verge, but did manage to just get in front of him before he hit me.
My girfriend screamed, as she thought he had hit us, although I felt no 'bump', I gently braked as I wasn't sure what was going on, only to see this person slam their anchors on and weave about a bit, clearly he hadn't seen me, and the sight of my brake lights must have woken him up, as he seemed to very much over react to just my brake lights, I hardly touched the pedal..
So a bit shaken, I carried on, with no time to feel angry, I thought that although close, it hadn't come to an accident so it wasn't too bad..
Anyway, I want get off at the next junction, and I move into the very long filter lane. The car that nearly hit me started to overtake and I obviously glanced over, expecting to see some sheepish looking person, and I had no intention of being nasty, but OMG, His missus, and some 18-20 year old in the back is giving me severe signs/grief/gesticulations...
THAT WAS IT!!!! I just flipped from shaken but calm to WTF, you nearly cause a bad accident and you think I'm a *******???
I then indicated, pulled back onto the motorway from the filter lane, and went into a bit of a point proving mission, I came up the inside of him (I know it was illegal, that didn't seem to come to mind at the time), rolled my window down, they rolled their windows down, and OMG, I've never heard a woman swear so badly in my life (and that's saying something), the guy in the back was mouthing off big style, even though we where doing 60ish, I had no problem hearing them.. so I scream back at them in such a violent manner (Not threatening them with anything, just telling them in no uncertain terms they had just nearly hit me, and can ***** ***** **** themselves. I thought I heard the guy in the back threaten me, which totally pushed me over the edge, I wanted to ram him off the road and kill him, I could feel my blood boil, i can't explain how I felt, just so angry that he'd nearly hit me and thought I was the one in the wrong that needed 'sorting out'.. I then said something, which I can't remember except using some really menacing words, etc, and absolutely screamed it at them.. whatever it was, it must have worked, there faces dropped, and they wound their windows up. I pulled off at the next junction, and went home.
I was expecting a roasting of the girlfriend, but to my surprise she was quite angry with them as well, but I still felt really ashamed and a bit remorseful..
I am sure plenty of people get in these road rage scenarios, but what surprised me is the feeling of anger I had, almost blind rage, now I've calmed down, if I saw the bloke again, I'd probably apologise, it's not the way to act, no matter who's fault it is..
bloody hell 
)
