Furious

I had a little run-in with a cocky young driver this morning, and I'm still pissed.

I was taking the kids to school, driving up our street, and I get to a 4-way stop, so I stop. At this point, I'm the only vehicle at the intersection. I start to go, and suddenly this little green car comes flying down the intersecting street, blows through the stop sign and makes a right turn right in front of me, cutting me off. I could see that it was a young guy driving - late teens/early 20's. I go through the intersection and I'm behind him now, and I was so pissed, I honked my horn at him. We're now on a fairly steep downhill incline, and he freaking stops - suddenly! - at the interesection at the bottom of the hill, and there's no effing stop sign there! It was crystal clear that he was trying to get back at me for calling him out for cutting me off and honking at him. Now he was trying to get me to rear-end him! He's driving this little sedan, and I'm driving a big Expedition, easily twice the size of his little car, and he's basically playing chicken with me. I slammed on my breaks and I swear to god I came within inches of plowing into the back of him - in fact, I really, really thought "This is it, I'm going to hit him, there's no way out of it." I managed to stop, screeching tires and all, right before I hit him, and then he took off again. I was shaking by this time, I was so furious and upset. There I am with a car full of kids and this young, arrogant asshole is putting not only his own life in danger, but mine and my kids' as well. I rolled down my window and screamed at him "I'm taking down your license plate number!!" (Of course I didn't, I was too shaken up to remember anything except the first two numbers.)

Honestly, this stuff not only pisses me off, but scares the crap out of me too. You can be driving as carefully and defensively as possible, and all it takes is some reckless teenager (or drunk driver, or idiot on a cell phone) to wipe out a whole family. I honestly can't imagine putting my kids behind the wheel of a car before they're . . . . um, 30?