Tonight I encountered a road rager. I approached (slowly) going down PB, and it was about time to pass them. No traffic in sight, I started my pass, and I'd clear in about 10 seconds at the non-accelerated speed - learning from my mistakes of the past.
Unfortunately, that's when things got dumb.
I noticed I wasn't getting past the car - in fact, they were now pulling away. I'd noticed my speed go slightly up to try and end the traffic situation, but they were speeding to outpace me. Unwilling to drive too fast, I braked, and pulled behind them.
If someone is trying to overcome you in a legal passing zone, it is illegal (in Wisconsin anyway) to speed up - especially over the speed limit - for the sole reason of preventing them from overtaking you.
And, that's exactly what happened. When I returned to the lane, they slowed right back down to their old speed. At this point I probably did something irrational myself; I briefly turned my brights on to express my "wtf" at them - and then the "fun" started. They started braking hard - suddenly we were down to 45mph in a 55. Clearly this person was raging at me, beginning with the speeding up scene.
The other scary thing - I noticed a little girl looking back when I turned my brights on. So this person was road raging with a kid in the car.
When we were down to 45mph, I'd had enough of the games. Since the person was trying to make me tailgate them, I suddenly passed and zoomed past - and we were slow enough that I stayed within the speed limit. Of course, this led to them tailing me hard with their brights on, honking, etc. I had returned to the lane, resuming the speed limit, and hitting cruise control. We approached the stop sign to turn onto 69, and when I was stopped to turn, they were honking all the while.
I drove as normal, now in a brief section of road with a 3 lane road, our side with a passing lane. They sped up and passed me but then immediately slowed down so I was stuck in their blind spot. Not playing the game, I just maintained my speed and laughed at how stupid this person was. Eventually the lanes merged back and they slowed down - as predicted - but I was so done with the idiocy I just dealt with it. We continued like this until I could turn off down Old Madison to go the alternate way home, so I had one last attack of high beams before I turned off.
I wanted to tell the story to get it off my chest, but also that I think I've grown a lot from all the driving incidents and experiences I've had. I was able to control myself and drive rationally (besides the brights.. but I mean come on), while the other driver could not keep themselves under control and even drove at risk with a child in the car. That's what bothered me the most.
Anyway, I'm sure people are going to read this and blame me for something. But whatever. I felt like I did what was right and I believe it, and that's all that matters. And if you have a kid in the car, don't drive like an idiot or road rage, or both.
