Traffic Incident
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 11:32 am
Tell me if you would've handled this different.
We live in a newer custom home neighborhood and typically on the weekends the kids all congregate and adults come outside to watch them.
Saturday night, everyone was down the street and wanted us to come down. I was pushing my two daughters in the stroller, wife beside me on one side and son on the other walking down the sidewalk. I hear tires screeching up the street and a car approaches the stop sign, squeals all 4 tires around the corner while running it. At this point he is headed towards where all the other kids are playing and adults congregated. My neighbor goes into knife hand mode and yells at the driver to slow down. He responds be erratically swerving and speeding up while taking an immediate left into a culdesac. He continues squealing all the way around the culdesac and heads back towards the street everyone was and not slowing down. Another dad parks an atv (yes that is againt the law on a city street) in the street in front of them and puts up his hands to slow down. They respond by hopping the curb around him.
This is where it gets interesting. They could take a left and pull out of the neighborhood away from the kids and other or take a right and go back through where they came from. I was watching from a distance until I saw them take a right. They squeeled around the corner again taking a right heading back towards the kids and towards my family who was with me on the curb. Seeing they had no respect for lanes, angry dads, or curbs I ran towards them in the street with my hands up yelling stop. I was attempting to put myself between my family and them. They sped up when they saw me and slammed on the brakes as they got to me. They then swerved around and made contact with me with their mirror. In a last ditch effort to get them to stop I left a large dent in the 1/4 panel with my fist. They then ran the stop sign again next to my family on the corner and squeeled away.
We sat for a bit contemplating if they were drunk, high, kids, or what when an officer pulled up to our group and singled me out. Apparently they had pulled away, called the police, reported an assault and told a much different story. Luckily there were 5 or 6 adult witnesses that backed me up but apparently there is a detective looking into it. I assume nothing will happen, but happy I had the mental faculty not to draw my gun. What would you do different?
We live in a newer custom home neighborhood and typically on the weekends the kids all congregate and adults come outside to watch them.
Saturday night, everyone was down the street and wanted us to come down. I was pushing my two daughters in the stroller, wife beside me on one side and son on the other walking down the sidewalk. I hear tires screeching up the street and a car approaches the stop sign, squeals all 4 tires around the corner while running it. At this point he is headed towards where all the other kids are playing and adults congregated. My neighbor goes into knife hand mode and yells at the driver to slow down. He responds be erratically swerving and speeding up while taking an immediate left into a culdesac. He continues squealing all the way around the culdesac and heads back towards the street everyone was and not slowing down. Another dad parks an atv (yes that is againt the law on a city street) in the street in front of them and puts up his hands to slow down. They respond by hopping the curb around him.
This is where it gets interesting. They could take a left and pull out of the neighborhood away from the kids and other or take a right and go back through where they came from. I was watching from a distance until I saw them take a right. They squeeled around the corner again taking a right heading back towards the kids and towards my family who was with me on the curb. Seeing they had no respect for lanes, angry dads, or curbs I ran towards them in the street with my hands up yelling stop. I was attempting to put myself between my family and them. They sped up when they saw me and slammed on the brakes as they got to me. They then swerved around and made contact with me with their mirror. In a last ditch effort to get them to stop I left a large dent in the 1/4 panel with my fist. They then ran the stop sign again next to my family on the corner and squeeled away.
We sat for a bit contemplating if they were drunk, high, kids, or what when an officer pulled up to our group and singled me out. Apparently they had pulled away, called the police, reported an assault and told a much different story. Luckily there were 5 or 6 adult witnesses that backed me up but apparently there is a detective looking into it. I assume nothing will happen, but happy I had the mental faculty not to draw my gun. What would you do different?
it appears that putting your body between your family and the car is noble, but it would not have stopped the car. Even shooting the driver is not necessarily helpful if he's already pointed the car at you. Getting your family and yourself out of the way is the only real option. I would hope while you were doing your thing that your wife was getting the kids out of the way. You two might want to discuss how to handle any future crises.