UKH

My daughter is in her mid twenties and, after not needing to drive for several years, a couple of months ago she took the big step of getting her own car. Today as she drove home after visiting us she had a really nasty encounter. The route Google suggested involved turning right from a small side road onto a busy and chaotic city street. She is very cautious so took some time to find a slot in the traffic and pull out. At the next set of lights the car which had been impatiently waiting behind her drew alongside and the 2 middle aged occupants (both men) screamed a torrent of abuse at her.

She has an anxiety disorder which she takes meds for, plus is almost certainly neuro-atypical. This event has had a catastrophic effect on her already shaky confidence. She called me in hysterics, totally besides herself. The only comfort I could give was that she hadn't done anything wrong and the people were being absolute dicks. How anyone could ever think this behaviour was acceptable in a civilised society is beyond me.

So my question to UKC - is there anything else we could now proactively do? Obviously there is now nothing we can do to report this particular incident as my daughter was far too traumatised to take a number plate or description. But would a dash cam potentially put off anyone in the future? 

You have to wonder what makes these people think that it's ok yelling abuse at someone because they were a bit slow to pull out of a junction.

Some people are just tw@ts and I doubt a camera is going to change that.

Was the driver Ronnie Pickering?

https://www.google.com/search?q=ronnie+pickering+video&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB...

I'd give her a rear view and looking ahead camera, 'just because', I think, and talk about it being helpful for the insurance, and potentially helpful in making them restrain themselves once she points out they're on camera (should they get out of their car). Ones which can pivot on their mounting for the front view are probably available. 

A hippy friend a few years ago responded that people seem to be increasingly angry at life, after I recounted some verbal abuse a passenger directed at me after questioning the 'beep' and terse words I got from a driver (they were probably technically in the right, in my being misplaced to pull out from a side road into the main road in front of them, but the traffic present meant that they couldn't have gone past the side road I emerged from, making it seem 'fair enough' to emerge in front of them and across into the side road ahead of me, I'd projected how I'd approach things onto another road user, which is often a mistake).

Some people are angry, some people are narcissistic, and some people feel detached from others while in their cars, which means they wouldn't be the same with people if they weren't in them, and the other people weren't either. I hope your daughter recovers soon.

A lot is gaining confidence, knowing she did nothing wrong and relaxing; easier said than done. A dash cam is unlikely to be any good unless it catches the event (when at side unlikely) and she would need to report it and all that entails.

One thing that may help is for her to take some form of advanced driving course eg IAM Roadsmart, Police Civilian advanced driving course (if they still exist) as they teach what is acceptable standard in all circumstances and instill confidence to drive to that high standard no matter what and being able to ignore (in the sense of not being pressurised, not being put off, not taking risks, etc) those that are impatient. It will take time though to learn and it costs quite a lot (though meantime my local IAM group are doing it for free for young drivers as a special promotion).

As an humerous aside, but an example of learnt confidence, I knew a guy when I was young who was a lorry driver. He got no end of “hassle” and abuse for supposedly holding others up and he had learnt to relax and ignore. His “party piece” when in a difficult situation that couldn’t be avoided, like taking too long to turn in restricted space etc, with horns blowing, was to get out and go to the first horn blowing driver ignoring the abuse and calmly and politely say that he will hold his hand on their horn if they could go and drive his lorry. He said it used to silence the driver instantly. (Not that I’m suggesting your daughter try anything like that especially nowadays.)

That's a classic response. 

If some big, hairy arsed lorry driver made me the same offer, I can see myself going very quiet too.

In my younger days I was the hairy arse on multiple occasions, it was really funny watching Mr wannabe Road rage scrabble round the car making sure all the doors are locked. It became no fun when central locking became the norm though. 

From what I can gather, your presumption that it's a "civilised society" seems less credible year on year. Unfortunately, it's a case of 'monkey see, monkey do', and the people at the top have been setting the worst possible example.

many thanks for the suggestions. I don't think I'll recommend the lorry driver tactic to her though!

He didn’t fit that description though. He was small(ish) in statue and had a genuinely quiet unthreatening demeanour naturally. However, he was laid back chilled and this meant he could come across as very confident in stressful situations and it was that and a wickedly quick sense of humour that seemed to help him put strangers on their back foot so to speak. 

youtube.com/watch?v=9GtJOoi826g&

I think this fits. 

You’re never too old. Three years ago, while driving a large van for a company he was working for, my Dad got into a petrol forecourt altercation with a business suit wearing 30 something. Dad offered him out there and then. The 30 something retreated into his rep mobile and locked the doors. This story was recounted to me with some glee by my Dad’s co driver on the day. The man himself had told Mum and me nowt.

Dad will be 82 in a couple of months😂

You misunderstand me. I’d be more alarmed at a complete stranger offering to put their hand on my horn in return for a go on their lorry.

Even one of those big ones with a bed in the back?

No. At a minimum I’d want two weeks courting, a couple of decent dinners and a formal introduction to their parents.

I would be dubious about the usefulness of the camera.  I have my doubts the arseholes would pay any attention and, if they did, it might be after their little brains notice the camera and hence go for disabling it.

As such the only way it might is them getting a chat from the police later and sadly whilst that might get two idiots learn their lesson there is an endless queue behind them.

That said I guess she might get a boost from it so who knows.

So a rather unhelpful answer overall but I guess compared to the playing with the truckers horn it might help.

Two weeks riding shotgun in the truck wittily named the 'Johnson Penetrator', a couple of meals at sit down caffs as opposed to Drive Throughs and a prison visit to the surviving parent then?

Confused.
That just appears to be a truck driver deliberately driving in to the back of a car and causing damage for no real reason apart from he was a bit upset at that drivers driving.
 

I bought one after a couple of very angry people overtook me and then jammed on their brakes. A dashcam doesn't stop shouting and horn blowing, but will record those that take it further. Interestingly since I have had this  (is is quite prominent), such behaviour has not been repeated.

Good lad.

Never back down from trouble but I have found as I get older I'm less inclined to get out of the van and look for it. 

Yeah, the last incident on my push bike where I got to confront (politely, no swearing from me) the driver at the next junction turned into a more drawn out episode of bike vs car and I ended up endangering myself (and others) further. I don't think it taught the driver anything other than to hate cyclists even more.

A camera would have been useful for the police though, both for the original dangerous driving, and the ensuing fracas where the law was certainly broken (not by me - in his haste to get away from me confronting him again at another junction because he deliberately tried to run me off the road after the first confrontation, he drove over a pavement to get past a queue of cars - luckily no pedestrians but it's near two primary schools and I dread to think what could have happened).

After that, I resolved to just let it go in the future.

A*seholes...they're everywhere!

This sounds very specific? Never had you down as an HGV driver but, yeah, sounds reasonable.

This won't apply in your daughter's case, but from what I've seen on You Tube, having a dash cam or helmet cam in some cases brings out the worst in its owner, whereby the camera person in some cases seeks confrontation with others just so they can come out with "Got you on camera mate". The worst offenders seem to be motorcyclists who have the capacity to chase down real or imagined offenders to chastise them on camera when the wisest course of action would be to live and let live and de-escalate any possible road rage incident.

It was the size of the lorry driver, and the retreating driver upon seeing that.

You're basically saying that a big bloke in a big truck can effectively get away with smashing up another car through intimidation. 

I’ve had a lot incidents with men shouting at me. Which I suppose isn’t reassuring but sad news. 
 

Recently a young guy thought I had pulled out in front of him (I hadn’t he was speeding so he came too fast and didn’t see me- he was no where to be seen when I started to pull out the junction ). He slammed on, did a 3 point turn and followed me home. Then stopped and continued to shout at me.  It was terrifying but I have experience dealing with aggressive people (from working as a nurse ). I found in most cases when someone screams at me if you state what is happening it can help to kind of ‘stop’ the situation. So by stating that he was intimidating and scaring me I hoped this would stop him.  
I said to this guy ‘ did you just follow me?’ And he said yes (what else could he say) and continued to shout at me.  I just kept saying ‘you’re scaring me’ your intimidating me and ‘ I can’t believe you followed me’ in a calm tone and he left.  After a while!! 
I did also lock my doors and only had the window open a smidge. 
this guy was in his 20s. 
 

the other most recent time was similar to your daughter.  The guy behind me (older guy) was screaming at me to pull out and then drove very close behind me shouting once I had.  I know my shit car can’t pull out quickly so maybe in spaces he would have gone I couldn’t.   With this guy I just continued and pulled over when I could to let him past and kept my doors locked. Had he come up to me I would have asked him in a calm way “are you ok?” But again would have kept doors locked .  
 

Cameras might help because she can point out that they’re on camera and if nothing else she’s got evidence if needed.  
 

sorry to hear about her experience- it’s terrifying when it happens.  She didn’t do anything wrong and should be allowed to take her time to pull out.  Maybe while she’s new back to it from a break the stickers which indicate recent passing (green L?) might help ? Hope it doesn’t put her off.  
 

in all of my experiences I’ve wondered if they would have done the same thing if I wasn’t a woman alone in a tiny rubbish car…..but I’ll never know!!! 
 

It was just the reaction at size difference to be honest.

My two-penn'orth:

1) By the time the other driver has got themselves into the screaming abuse state, they're probably way beyond noticing a minor detail like a dashcam.

2) Most dashcams are fairly discreet and - due to the regulations about not blocking the view through the windscreen - tucked away up by our even behind the rear view mirror, so far from obvious to casual view other than from directly in front.

3) If the person being abused points out the dashcam to the abuser then, sadly, that's as likely to make them even angrier than to calm then down.

4) The field of view of your average common or garden dashcam is usually a bit less than 90° either side of the way the camera is facing. With the dashcam mounted facing forward up by the rear view mirror, as is typically the case, the field of view doesn't cover any meaningful part of the road space to either side of the vehicle.  Even a combination of front and rear dashcams can have a "blind spot" to each side. However, a rear-facing dashcam can be useful for capturing the lead-up to the incident, gestures made by the abusive driver before they pull alongside, their facial expressions, spittle-flecked windscreen etc. And, of course, their registration number, which wouldn't be captured when they're alongside.

5) I'd advise against hoping to use the audio recorded by the dashcam as evidence. There have been far too many instances of cases being dropped by the police because the dashcam owner said something rude back and thus 'escalated the situation' or some such bottom dribble. My advice would be to keep the audio recording turned off.

So short answer: I doubt a dashcam/cams would necessarily put verbal abusers off, but it might provide sufficient evidence, if used wisely, to persuade the police to go and "have a word".

Your daughter's experience does sound horrible. The kind of people who seem to think that such behaviour is acceptable need to be given the clearest possible message that it really isn't. And when the other party is a vulnerable person who isn't able or confident enough to stand up for themselves, that message needs to come from the police. Video evidence can help with getting that to happen.

I think it's a "P", isn't it?  For "passed", I think it's supposed to be (though of course every driver should have passed their test at some point in their driving life...)

Yes, this.

I've come across incidents in the news where drivers who have been in the process of assaulting cyclists have backed off when a helmet cam has been pointed out.

I had a fun run-in with a guy in a car who aggressively thought I should be in the cycle lane and not in the road, even though we were all in the same queue of traffic and moving at the same speed. I  let him past but we were all still moving at the same speed, so I gave him the finger in his rear-view mirror. That prompted him to start swerving all over the road and braking erratically to try and get me to crash into him! Fortunately he turned off shortly afterwards.

I had a helmet cam but I deleted the video since I figured it took two to tango in this case. Probably enough pain in his miserable life already, anyway!

I have indeed wondered about a green P. Decided against as it felt rather like attaching a 'kick me' sign to the back of the car...

 so I gave him the finger in his rear-view mirror. 

Probably not a very wise thing to do in the circumstances? Whether you are right or wrong it's an aggressive gesture to make.

A touch of the red mist but, in my defense, he started it by sounding his horn close behind me and gesticulating madly. It was insane because it only got him a few meters closer to the car in front. I could actually have overtaken him in the cycle lane, but we were approaching a suicide turn-off onto a slip road where you really don't want to be in anyone's blind spot. 

Further thought - if she was using a sat nav (using google maps since you mentioned google?) then a practical helpful thing would be for her to understand how her sat nav works (if she doesn’t already). Usually there are settings for automatically re routing (see below), settings for which roads to use (quieter road in preference to snarled up congested one (might come under setting for amount of traffic delay is acceptable)), whether the shortest (can take down traffic congested roads), quickest, most scenic (often not congested but longer routes), etc.

I think she should at least set to auto re routing as a minimum. That would allow her to take a different direction at junctions if she felt it easier (eg trying to turn right across a couple of lanes of busy traffic which maybe easier to turn left to go and take a later turn to get to her destination). Auto re routing would do all the re direction for her within a minute or so.

Auto re routing would also allow her just to drive if she didn’t feel comfortable with someone who may or may not (just coincidence) be following her if there had been any previous hold ups/altercations or whatever. The sat nav would effectively allow her to keep driving (eg avoid her going down dead ends etc which could increase her anxiety) until she felt comfortable.

I do still think she should consider some form of additional driver training as I already mentioned. The right course for her could make her much more confident. Also, my layman’s understanding is it can be acceptable in law for good reason/emergencies etc., to use a mobile whilst driving (which includes being stationary but still in charge of the car). She could phone the police is she feels threatened by others whilst she is driving. 

Anyway, just thoughts, sorry that it happened to your daughter and I hope she can move forward somehow. Sadly there are quite a lot of inconsiderate drivers on the roads.