Be Excellent To Each Other

About 3 weeks ago I was driving along minding my own business down a major A-Road when a car shot out of a side junction causing me to swerve into the outside lane. I swerved to avoid the car and gave the international sign of bad driving to the driver.

When we both got to the junction I did a stupid thing and got out of the car to thank the driver for trying to kill me. He also got out, shouted at me and shoved me in the arm.

I thought about reporting it to the police but after sitting in a lane near to the police station I decided against. Let it lie was my thought. I never said anything to anybody, I just got on with my life.......

....until today. I had a CID officer drop a letter in and call me in for an interview. I sat there in disbelief as Mr Bad Driver had given a statement that appeared to make him look like an old lady on a Sunday drive while evil Mr Chinny came belting down the road before pulling up at the junction, throwing him from the car and grabbing him by the neck leaving marks.

Mr Bad Driver is 6 foot tall (the police told me this) so grabbing him by the neck would have been ill advised and in anycase he was built like a brick shithouse so I wouldn't have got anywhere near. There was also something about pulling him out of his car which seems even more incredulous as he was in a huge Range Rover. I'm 5 foot 4" and not strong.

Here's the bit that had me literally gasp in disbelief, he claims to have photos that show the redness on his neck where I grabbed him. But I never laid a finger on him.

After an hour at the police station I was let go with no further action to be taken. Its my word against his and I know his word is a load of lies.

I wish in retrospect I'd been man enough to report him on the morning for dangerous driving and for hitting my arm. But I guess I knew that getting out of the car was a bloody stupid thing to do.

We live and learn. I tell you what though, I have rarely been as scared as I was in that interview room even though the police officer was very nice and realised I was very scared.

The police said there was no case and it was the end of it. Hopefully this is right because I don't want to hear more of Mr Bad Drivers lies. Frankly someone who can produce photos that he claims to show bruises on his neck has to be a right nutter.

That's crappy man. You should've lamped him.

Sorry to hear that Chinny.


*tries to resist making the other obvious comment*

It's easier to pull people from cars like that as you are pulling them down and not up.

As you were.

Sorry hear that Chinny. All's well that ends well, though.

Demand a recount on my position as Official Beex Shortarse.

I think I'm 5'4 but I'm crap on measurements.

It's not good though is it? Someone prepared to fake evidence to exact their revenge for their own shit driving?

But as the policeman said, just don't get out of the car.

Yep. That way lies the stabbings.

It's good because it could have ended up going further, and didn't. I'd count my blessings if I were you. The guy's a wanker, but it's over with.

Fuck that, you should hunt him down, then put dog shit under his door handles.

He had to read me a caution thing when we started. Thats' not a formal caution that goes on a record is it?

He said notes would go on file.

I know nothing about dealing with the police and I suspect the nice policeman realised that.

Well built man tearing around countryside in a Range Rover. Hmmmmmmm.

Forget it, he knows where you live too.

Yeah. I'd leave Grim... well alone in future.

I'm pretty sure that's a no, unless you heard the words "formal caution" at some point.

Can't the police do him for making shit up? Man that would be frustrating.

That's it isn't it. Also there were no witnesses. I am counting my blessings, don't worry about that. But I'm still on a "comedown" as half hour ago I was being questioned.

I wonder if he realised that because he'd actually hit my arm (which is technically assault) he went to the police to get the first blow in because he realised that I might certainly report him.

I think he said it was just the "right to silence" caution, but obv I was bricking it at the time.

I think the caution the policeman meant was the "you have the right to be silent, anything you say may be used in evidence" thing they have to say when you have a formal interview. The sort of police caution that goes "on your record" is when you admit you did something and the policeman lets you off with a formal caution, instead of them having to worry about charging you and writing up a file for the CPS.

Almost certainly. I'm not sure how it would have played out if you had reported him. Proper cautions all round, possibly.

Sorry to hear about this Chinny, it's pretty much what we went through with Darryl and his ex, one of the workers at the unit she's at saw red marks on her neck, we're sure she did it herself, but now he has a record all the same.

Reminds me, I owe someone a PM about that.

I guess there's no witnesses so they can't.

However I'm not to know what they say to him when they phone him up/call him in. I'm also not to know his background. I have a clean record, he could be an international drug lord for all I know.

Well, he does drive a Range Rover so chances are good.

I think you are right. I didn't sign anything other than the tapes.

I need a drink and then I might call it a day and go home!

In this instance I am, chap. Go home, relax and have a glass of wine. And hope you don't run into him again.

The way my brain decodes the acronym when Charl goes on about how she "NFA'd it" always entertains me.

Anyway, this is going absolutely nowhere. The police know it, and will have carefully explained that to Mr Bad Driver.

Ironically of course, I've changed cars. Which gave the policeman something to smile about.

I say "policeman" but he was retired and worked on cases such as this. The nod not to proceed came back from "upstairs".

Presumably Mr Bad Driver now has no options left open to him, especially since the police know he hit me.

Still wondering why it all took 3 weeks. Backlog?

Sorry to hear that Chinny, but you made a big mistake in getting out of your car. I've had someone do that to me before and it was quite intimidating having him shout at me, his face mere inches from my face (albeit separated by glass).

Yes, you should always report this kind of thing if you can. My sister's boyfriend once got into an altercation with a couple of chavs on mopeds. One of them kicked his car as they drove past, but he decided to do nothing about it. A few weeks later and the police rang him up saying that they'd reported him!

Also, five foot four? I'd love to meet you and pretend to be a giant.

The coppers who handled the report knew it wasn't going anywhere and assigned it minimum priority, which gives something like a month to follow up - even down there, there'll have been less unworthy things to chase up. Then, at 3 weeks the system'll've flagged it up as running out of time and that's when they begrudgingly contacted you.

Despite what Grim said I still can't imagine me throwing his door open, undoing his seatbelt and throwing him from the car the size he was.

But yeah I was stupid. I know I shouldn't have got out the car. There's been a number of deaths down that road due to people pulling stunts from side roads. I wasn't happy at being a few seconds away from rear ending a Range Rover at 40mph. If it had been wet I wouldn't like to say what would have happened.

I am sorry to hear that Chinny.


SO is every one on this forum, either very tall or very short?

Zardoz is pretty average.

Not only that, but outlandishly light or heavy.

In what way, I have read his posts!!!

Nope, I'm 5'11'' sir. That's pretty normal I reckon.

yes you are normal...

Uh, yeah. 'OK'.

I am 6'1" tall with thin arms and legs but big torso and face.

With a cock like a draught excluder.

'big torso'

Perfectly accurate.

... for a doll's house.

Sorry to hear about your experience btw Chinny.

Best left well alone now.

I think I'm about 5'9-10". Did I seem slightly smaller than you? I haven't measured my height in years.

But, seriously, same height to taller I reckon

It wasn't assault, it was self defence. The assault was you gesticulating at him, then getting out the car and walking toward him.

That's what he'd have argued.

Get a faster car, then you would have been past the junction....

Thank you Lionel Hutz.

What Mrs C pointed out to me this evening was it is entirely probable that Mr Bad Driver was looking for a compo claim (get a crime number and away you go) or had previous convictions and thought I was going to get a complaint in against him which wouldn't look good.

It's all sorted now thankfully. Not a day I would care to repeat in a hurry although I might cherish the fact that someone has tried to pretend I'm Mr T. Remember, I'm the guy who if he uses a Fig Rig for more than 20 minutes will have burning arms for 24 hours afterwards.

He can't have been too bright because presumably he would have made his story more plausable. There's something about him claiming to have the marks on his neck I find disturbing but I guess I'll never know the full story or his motivations.

Didn't get home early in the end. Drove home after the rush hours and did a whopping 57mpg. I did watch a load of 70's and 80's TV to make me feel better. Windsor Davies and Don Estelle always make me chuckle.

Mrs C reckons I'm 5 foot 6 btw.

Must have missed the bit where you mentioned that.

you've grown 2 inches in one day?

Driving a car makes people mental.

Twice I've been in minor collisions which were my fault - once reversing into a side road and dinking someone I hadn't seen driving up it and the other pulling out at a junction when the bloke in front hadn't. Both were about 3-4mph with no damage yet the people that got out of the car acted like I'd been round to their house and shit in their child's bed.

In both instances the anger abated pretty quickly but with some people they can't let it go (I've worked with someone that will get wound up about the most trivial thing said on 3pm in an afternoon and stew about it all night and then still be going on about at 3pm the next day).

I reckon the idiot in your case was that wound up he just sat stewing about it and thought "I'll show him Butler, just you see if I don't".

This all reminds me of the wonderful time a few years ago when my dad was reversing his car into our driveway, only for the driver side of his car to get hit by a car hooning down the road at 80mph. By some miracle my dad got out of it concussed and with a cut to his forehead from hitting the windscreen, but both cars were completely written off. The two people in the other car also got out of it okay, as they both jumped out of the wreckage of their car and proceeded to run off. There were a few witnesses, one of which tried to aprehend the driver of the other car, only for them to pull out a knife.

The police did actually catch both of them though (they were on the scene in literally seconds, making us wonder if they'd been following these two already) and found both were several times over the legal drink drive limit and neither owned nor had insurance for the car (ie, it was stolen).

Months went by with my dad hearing nothing from the police about the incident, so he chased them up. It took nearly a year to get a response, whereupon we discovered that the officer that had been working on the case had apparentely moved to another force and was no longer reachable and his superior had recently been signed off due to ill health. In the meantime, all the evidence and case notes had been lost, so the two in the other car were officially let off for the whole thing.

Last year, my dad was involved in a far less serious crash after driving through a traffic-light controlled crossroads: the traffic lights were out and a girl in a Mini mistakenly sped across without looking and dad went into the side of her. They swapped insurance details, but when dad called his insurers later on, it turned out his policy had been previously voided but the letter informing him of this had been lost in the post. Regardless, my dad was charged with driving without insurance, fined £250 and given 6 points on his licence. He was even named and shamed in the local paper.

The police are cunts.