By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
Somewhere across the space-time continuum a universe exists where the traffic gods actually do care what happens on the roadways. Evidently, our world has collided with that universe in the black hole of Lakeland, Florida. There, a local resident captured on video a cosmic exercise of justice for a tailgating driver who just couldn’t wait for her to make her turn. Flipping off the amateur videographer as he rocketed on by, the gods have exacted their revenge on 33-year-old Jeffrey White –and they must have a sense of humor. The unidentified motorist said, “He just started tailgating me and I’m looking in my mirrors and I’m like dude, what is going on. I didn’t even realize he shot a bird at me until after the video because I was focused on the road.” (video after the fold)
Here’s the video:
Jeffrey White of Tampa was arrested and charged with reckless driving and leaving the scene of a crash.
Source: abc News
~Mark Esposito, Weekend Contributor
I alsohave to disagree on LA drivers. The freeways are often total chaos with people doing all sorts of crazy things. The law of physics is often more applicable that the traffic law. LA to me was half way between a regular US city and what I experienced in Turkey.
Granted, I have been in some really hairy experiences driving emergency vehicles but a cab ride I had in the Med coast there in Turkey was in the top three for an unnerving ride. I remember instinctively and reflexively pushing the imaginary brake on the floor. It was a harrowing ride. If you saw the traffic movements there you would be amazed that every car is not one of a thousand dents running on the sides and rear bumper.
Good call samantha. That’s how I saw it too.
Samantha, Brava!
Pat, I’m in SoCal in the winter. What makes driving so much better compared to the Midwest is the MUCH fewer tractor trailers. I just don’t see lollygagging in the San Diego area. That said, everything is relative. I have driven coast to coast MANY times. I grew up in New England. Wisconsin is the worst. When I talk w/ truckers they corroborate my perspective. They also hate Boston and Oklahoma[go figure] drivers. I’ve driven thru OK many times and never noticed anything.
Pat, God bless you for teaching your son correctly. Young drivers are big time lollygaggers. So are old men.
Or two trucks side by side and the driver in the far left lane hitting her brakes slowing down to 50 ( posted 65) miles per hour while talking on a cell phone.
Oops, just realized how sexist this sounded. Males do stupid stuff in that left hand lane also.
Caught on camera: Florida road rage driver crashes
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Updated: Mar 28, 2014 4:58 PM CDT
By WTHR Channel 13 – Email
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA –
A Florida woman is speaking out after falling victim to a case of road rage. She says she witnessed “instant karma” when the tailgater ran his pickup truck off the road near Tampa.
Watch it here. (Note – the video contains an image of the driver making a rude gesture.)
When she refused to pull over for the tailgating driver, he zoomed by and gave her the middle finger. That’s when he lost control of his truck and crashed into a pole. She caught it all on camera.
“I just pulled up the phone, driving with one hand and focusing on the road, focusing on my mirrors everything, and I just kind of held up the phone,” she said.
The driver was later arrested for leaving the scene of the crash. He was not injured.
The video already has more than four million hits on YouTube.
The woman wrote, “This happened to me on SR 41 in Tampa on Monday March 24th. This pathetic excuse for a human being tailgated me for about three minutes. After about a minute, and me shaking my head, I pulled out my phone and started recording.”
She explained, “I couldn’t move over because there were trucks in the right lane, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to speed on a rainy day with the roads being as slick as they were. I was turning left in about a half-mile when this happened.”
“Now bear in mind, that this guy had already passed a truck in a left turn lane, was tailgating and driving recklessly on a wet slick road, wasn’t paying attention, and all in all being an ignorant —. Not once was I mouthing off, I never brake checked him, and in fact until I watched the video after the accident I didn’t even know he shot a bird at me because I wasn’t looking at him at all. I was paying attention to the road while holding the phone up with my right hand. I’ve recorded circumstances like this before, catching idiots doing stupid things, but never ever had this happen.”
“He initially fled the scene of the accident, but thanks to this video he has been caught and charged. Massive props to the Sheriff’s Department and most especially the Highway Patrol who responded to the scene. This moron could have easily killed somebody with his moronic behavior, and my laughing at the end would have been replaced with tears. Needless to say though, I’ve never seen Karma come back so fast.”
She explained that she disabled comments on her YouTube post after she says some viewers left rude comments.
“Apparently people seem to think that they were right there and know exactly what was going on. You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened other than the truth that I told. And apparently I did get a comment of someone who he had done this same thing to… thank you for that,” she wrote.
Whoa nick, while I agree with you that she was lollygagging, California has some of the WORST drivers for this type of action. I always thought it was because we had so many emigrants or passers through but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen traffic held up on a six lane freeway (three in each direction) and there were three trucks pacing one another, no one even trying to pass. Or two trucks side by side and the driver in the far left lane hitting her brakes slowing down to 50 ( posted 65) miles per hour while talking on a cell phone.
I guess we live in different parts of the state. When I taught my son to drive I taught him he did not have the right to obstruct traffic. If he was doing 70 mph in the left hand lane and someone was going 80 mph, get out of their way.
As we watch this video, we see that there are no cars for miles in front of the videographer. We can also see that the videographer is going about the same speed as traffic in the right lane, which has plenty of room to pull over into. Where I live, it’s not only law but also considered a courtesy to pull over, even if you are already driving the speed limit, so that faster moving traffic can proceed unhindered. The videographer is also driving carelessly, more concerned with aiming her camera than aiming her car. One can only assume she had spent months, harvesting the right opportunity to bait a tailgater, in order to overcome the incredible odds that led to this event. It’s people like this person who are responsible for all the road rage; they pull out in front of you, they cut you off, they don’t move over, they text, talk and look at themselves in the mirror, totally oblivious of situational awareness that otherwise makes it possible for every motorist to have a pleasant day, escaping becoming 1 of 35,000 casualties each year on highways. Karma has already probably bitten her own ass by now. No community needs a motorist like her, much less over-socialized, urban folks with misplaced schadenfreude, reinforcing insane behavior. I have always felt that road-rage laws are misdirected, criminalizing valid impatience, when in fact discourteous behavior should be outlawed. In this way the law protects the rude driver. And we wonder why, stupidly, why road rage is now epidemic.
ROMEO
I would, I would flip thy bird.
JULIET
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! passing is such
sweet sorrow,
That I shall spite thee till it be morrow.
“It takes 2 to Tango” mea culpa
“It takes to Tango,” Golden Country
And wehat Nick said plus she even admitted when he tried to pass she sped up. She is not totally innocent.
The guy is an a$$hole and the bird was not necessary, however the other driver was doing what is my pet peeve. That driver was just lollygagging in the passing lane. In Wi., it is hell. Cheeseheads are the worst left lane hogs in the nation. California has some of the best drivers, maybe because they drive so much. Hardly ever is there someone hanging out in the passing lane. Just another perspective.
In some other article I read on the same incident, someone recognized him as the same man who had tailgated him. He’s really something.
Thanks for this. I will show it to youngest when she gets back. She hates tailgaters. She sometimes brake-checks them. When she was wearing her Sheriff’s Dept. uniform going back and forth to work, she had much less problem with tailgaters for some reason.
There used to be a guy who drove an old pickup truck around town. The truck had a do-it-yourself paint job in flat black. Something awful must have happened to the rear of it, because the back bumper had been replaced by a massive I-beam. The beam was painted flat black too, but in neat white block letters across the length of the beam web, it said, “I BRAKE FOR TAILGATERS.”
In all the years he drove it, I never once saw anyone tailgating him.
You should (™) the term “Schadenflorida”.
Hilarious!
Aaamen, Aaaamen, Aamen Amen Amen
Agamemnon, Aaaamen
On Christmas morning, Aaaamen. etc
song from Lillies Of the Field
The look on his face as he was flipping her off, evil ba****d. Kept his eyes off the road just a tad too long, hehehe, chuckle, cackle, snort.
Ohhhh hahahahahaaah! That was just too good to be true. I’m glad no one was hurt.