Mother and two kids crushed in LA road rage incident

[BrianR]

I see and deal with this every day. Think how you feel when you get stuck behind a slow-moving semi. Multiply by external stress, frustration and an inbred desire to pass a big truck no matter what and you wind up with a child functioning in an adult body.

I have been passed by cars on the shoulder, berm, median, even once an attempt to pass me on the right on an ONRAMP! That particular incident did not go well for the car and the trees he drove into to avoid certain death under my wheels. I sometimes wish I could have stopped just to see what the final tally was...

I also have the fun experience of "being taught a lesson" by some yokel in a tiny pickup. He was forced to slow down when I slowed for a light, trapping him behind a 78,000 lb truck going uphill. The driver of that pickup was so incensed that *I* would dare impede his progress that he nearly blew a gasket trying to show me how to drive, then he made the serious mistake of swerving in front of my (39 ton) rig and hammering the brakes.

39 tons do not stop readily, my friends. He noticed this fact as I locked all 18 and there was NO WAY he wasn't going under. I saw that toothless grin vanish as my grill came within inches of his bed and he floored the gas into a shopping mall and rammed into an SUV trying to exit. Luckily a police officer saw the whole incident and waved me on and proceeded to arrest that driver.

I see things like this all the time. All I can do is shake my head and try to avoid killing anyone.