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First, I went the Uechi Ryu Forum, read a thread about road rage, and then I read this:
Police say stabbing followed road rage. I also recalled all the stories I've heard about road rage, where people duke it out or get shot or stabbed trying to fight someone on the highway over a driving error.
After a little reflection (oh about 2 minutes) I asked myself this question: why doesn't anybody think about hitting the fool with their car?
Let me tell you a story: One day, I was riding in Laurel, and a crazy bum started shouting racial slurs at me while I was in the vehicle with my then 4 year old son. I was stuck at a stop light. Now he first came towards the car from a hill above, and as he approached he saw my size, then backed up. But then, in a whim of total stupidity, he got some courage from somewhere and decide to continue up to my car, yelling, screaming, threatening me. So then, I did what any man in my family would do: I revved up the engine, shifted gears, looked at him and prepared to run him over. All it took was a "vroom-vroom" and a slight jerk forward, and Crazy Bum got the hint. He back pedaled real fast and looked like his heart was going to jump out of his throat. As he ran back, almost into traffic, he left a hole for me to drive through. I looked for oncoming cars and drove away as quickly as possible. I did not wait around to see if he was armed. Less than 30 seconds later, a cop drove up near me, glanced over at me and in my back seat, then continued on (that in an of itself was UNBELIEVEABLE). I looked back in my rearview mirror and saw my son playing peacefully, and another cop car looked like it stopped at the light where I was.
I assume that a cop may have seen what was happening, but could not drive over there in time to handle Crazy Bum. Either that, or he wanted to wait for me to do something stupid, so that he could arrest one or both of us. Call me paranoid, but I assume that being the big young black man I probably would be locked up no matter what, even if I am let go later, unless five sheet-wearing K.K.K. members are trying to beat me over the head with a flaming cross in the middle of Washington DC on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
But notice my first assumption about the police: I assume that the cop saw something, but could not get over to where I was in time to stop the situation from escalating. So that meant, ultimately, my safety was in my own hands when dealing with road rage. Yes, the guy was on foot, but I was in the car, so it counts. This means that had I been crazy enough to think that I could get on a cell phone and call 911, I could have gotten stabbed or shot had this guy been armed. What could I do? Despite my size and training, I was in a seated position with a seatbelt on. Plus, I had a toddler to worry about. What could I do if he pulled out a bat and started pounding on my windshield?
I tell you what I could do; run him over with the car. Had he attacked, he'd gotten tapped. Then if he came back, tapped again, and if he pulled out a gun, he would have been run over. I would have let the lawyers handle the details later, but basically, I would use the stick-shift and 2 tons o' steel to handle the few pounds of steel in a baseball bat or a 9 mm. Why? Because my life and the life of my child or anyone I hold dear is worth it.
My goodness, you may say, you study a martial art, so shouldn't you use you fighting skills to stop this guy? Well hey, why should I! I assume that anyone who appears to be normal sized and tries to attack me is either drunk, high, armed, crazy, or another martial artist. Why should I go toe-to-toe with someone in that state of mind when:
In my brief stint with Shorin-Ryu, part of the oath we said was "These are my weapons--my empty hands." Well, ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that the next time you are faced with road rage, you wrap those empty hands around a steering wheel if some fool jumps out of their car and wants to argue with you over a U-turn. People may be crazy, but I don't know anyone who is foolish enough to think their iron-body training is going to stop a DarCar.
I will end with a Southern Maryland childhood story:
After a discussion on road rage, a small child (me) once asked his elderly cousin who lived in a rough area if he would ever shoot someone who attacked his car while he was driving. No son, he said, I don't need to carry steel to do that. In fact, I have all the steel I need, right there, underneath my hands, in the form of a steering wheel that directs my car. If any fool wants to come at me at night, at my age, while I'm in a car, I will mow him down and keep on going. I am too old to be dealing with that foolishness.
We should ALL consider ourselves too old to deal with the foolishness of road rage. And if we walk the path of the Empty Hands, we must make sure our heads aren't empty. The only people I have ever seen who would try to take on a vehicle are Manga and Japanese Anime characters who shoot lasers out of their hands. What are the odds that a cartoon character is going to attack YOU on the road?
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