Xoutpost.com - My E53 + Dinan mods save me from Road Rage A$$h@le

Every once in a blue moon one is faced with a very SURREAL level of human behaviour, where you simply cannot believe what is happening. You know it's happening, you just can't believe it's happening to YOU. This is what happened to me yesterday around lunchtime.

I will leave the exact location concealed, but here is what happened. I was waiting to make a right turn onto a major truck route. The light was red, and while there is a right on red allowed at that intersection, there were way too many vehicles to merge safely into the flow of traffic.
As I am patiently waiting to turn, with my turn blinker on, a white American-made SUV, squeezes up on my rear end, and starts honking with long 5-second bursts, trying to prod me into the 40-mph truck traffic swinging across in front of me. The light continues to stay red, and the guy behind me can clearly see that I have to wait for the traffic, yet he continues with the honking and inching closer behind me.

Finally the light turns green. Before I have a chance to really get on the gas, the guy decides to show me what a MAN he is, and revs forward and to the left, trying to turn straight into the center lane to overtake me. At this point my fuse has also shortened considerably. I too, switch to the center lane because I am still in front of him, and I flip the guy a nice, juicy bird for good measure.

Once the guy sees my middle finger, the scene turns into a gangsta movie. He revs once more, violently switching lanes and pulls up alongside me on the right. He is a white dude, quite overweight, and with a scruffy shave (or lack of a shave), about 30 to 35 years old. Threatening gestures are made in my directon, ranging from Al-Qaeda type beheadings, to challenging me to pull off to the side of the road. As I accelerate the guy continues to accelerate alongside of me, menacing in my direction, and prodding me to pull off to the side to receive my "just desserts". He's also got some other guy in the front seat although I can't see the other guy's face too well. The driver also appears to be reaching for something underneath the seat. Bluffing? Maybe. Maybe not.

At this point, I'm doing a time-out in my head. I am never one to back down from a physical confrontation, especially when someone gets in my face in such a blatant fashion. Between my martial arts background and bench-pressing 405 pounds with free weights, I'm very confident in my physical skills, especially since the guy appears overweight, and hence slow. In a boxing ring I would unload on him like a Michael-Vick trained pit bull.

But I'm also not about to play roulette and assume this psycho is weapon-free. I'm not going to be drawn into a "trap" on HIS terms, so I can get shot in the head and left bleeding on the shoulder of he road.

The other thought going through my mind is how long will this guy be accelerating beside my X5 before he decides to just ram into my side and run my X off the road?? I mean my personal safety is one thing...But my beautiful modded X?!;)

I make the call that this "psycho dueling" is not what I had in mind during my lunchtime. I decide I'm going to lose this guy, once and for all, as fast as I possibly can. But alas, the road, while it has 3 lanes, has traffic lights every quarter mile. So every time I manage to put some distance between myself and this psycho, the red light brings us romantically back together. His side window is down at this point. His menacing hand gestures and the yelling continues. I flip him ANOTHER bird for good measure, switch to Sport mode and engage the kick-down switch. I see a fork in the road, and I take the left fork, at which point there are no more traffic lights. The speed limit is 45 mph. My speedo is at 80 and climbing fast. The psycho is obsessed and persistent. He, too, take my side of the fork and weaves madly between cars and semis, to stay within a few car lengths. I push the speed up more. I am weaving left and right in between massive tractor trailers, as my speedo gets to 90. Sppeding tickets are not even a slight worry at this point. I figure if I get stopped, I would explain the predicament I was in.

The fat scruffy guy in his fat American SUV is now starting to fall behind. He is having trouble while quickly switching lanes and gets stuck behind a slow-moving semi. I continue to gun it all the way, as my speed reaches 110 mph in a 50-mph zone. Cars flash by to the left and right of me, like you see in those Autobahn videos, where a Ferrari is whizzing past trucks at 3 times their speed. The guy becomes a white speck in my rear-view mirror. Another minute passes. I no longer see him. I pull off onto a side street to catch my breath. The reality of what just happened (and what could have happened) slowly starts to sink in. My X5's 4.4-liter Dinan-enhanced V8 saved my skin from a possible visit to a local trauma center.....or worse....

At this point I would let bygones be bygones. But what if the guy got my plate number?? He obviously had a major hard-on for me. He was completely obsessed, and just would not let up. If he's got a buddy in the police, he can run my plate number, and now he knows where I live and where my car is!!:yikes: Am I going to wake up one of these days and see my X keyed-up and all my tires slashed?? So I'm seriously thinking I need to set up surveillance of my driveway and of my back door. I've never done video surveillance, but I'm assuming it should be pretty easy these days. If anyone here has set up a wireless-video surveillance at their house (nothing too complicated), I'm all ears. And I'm thinking I should get back to gun ownership and pick up a nice Smith .40-cal for home defense, like I had a few years back. I wound up getting rid of it 2 years ago, because I have a young child in the house. But under the circumstances, I'd like to take all the precautions I can.

Hope you all enjoyed my little car chase story....I though the "E53" section was more appropriate for it than "The Lounge" because it was the E53 that launched and weaved me safely away from this psycho.