August 10, 2013, 7:38pm: I was driving on the I-15 north, headed toward Las Vegas. I was about 70 miles from the Nevada border. A small, older white car was in the left lane (there are two lanes on the 15 at this point), and was parallel with a slow-moving truck in the right lane. The speed limit is 70, and both the car and the truck were going about 60. At first I found myself annoyed by this. They were effectively creating a "blockade", not allowing anyone to pass, and traveling 10 mph below the speed limit. Usually when this happens, the car eventually speeds up and moves out of the way, or at the very least slows down and gets behind the truck. This didn't happen. The car maintained the same speed. I flashed my brights at the car, thinking perhaps the driver was unaware he was holding up traffic (perhaps talking on his phone). Nothing. The car ignored me.
7:42pm: After almost 5 minutes of this, I wondered what to do. I was considering flashing my brights again, but I was starting to worry that this was intentional, and that I might piss off some psycho on the road. I decided to throw caution to the wind, and flashed my brights at him again.
7:44pm: The car finally seemed to get the picture and sped up ahead of the truck, creating an open space for me to pass him on the right. For a moment, I hesitated, wondering if this was a setup. What if the guy was waiting for me to get parallel so he can shoot me? I decided that this was far fetched and unlikely. My plan was simply to floor it when I got to his right, get ahead of him, and speed up to ditch him. I caught up to the car, and started to move to the right to pass him. As I got close, he intentionally jerked his car to the right, attempting to hit me! And when I say hit me, I don't just mean tap my car to scare me. This person was trying to move to the right directly into my car, and literally run me off the road. I couldn't believe this. I felt like I was living a 1975 episode of "The Rockford Files". Did someone really just try to intentionally hit my car at 70mph? Did this really just happen? I decided that I didn't want to get anywhere near this psycho, and backed off. In an attempt to get a "second shot" at me, or perhaps just to fuck with me more, this driver slowed down below 60 mph, hoping I would catch up to him again.
7:46pm: A minivan, whose driver was clearly unaware of what had happened a few minutes ago, approached from behind. Both my car and the psycho's car were traveling very slowly. I was in the right lane, the psycho was on the left. The minivan went around me first, and then tried to go around the psycho on the right. The psycho then did the exact same thing to the minivan, again jerking his car abruptly to the right to force him off the road. The minivan reacted quickly and jerked to the right, as well. The minivan indeed was run off the road, and the psycho was now occupying the right lane by himself. Fortunately there was a usable shoulder, and the minivan floored it and got past the psycho, despite several more attempts on the part of the psycho to still hit him. Now I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. In my 25+ years of driving, I had never seen anything like this.
7:47pm I called 911. I reported what was happening. I could not describe the make and model of the car, as it was far enough ahead now to where I couldn't see such detail, and I only remembered the license plate starting with "4", which is fairly uncommon nowadays in California. I described the color and general description of the vehicle, as well as the "4" license plate. At their request, I gave them the call box number I was passing. They told me that they would inform an officer and would get en route immediately.
8:00pm No officer showed up. I knew that, being out in a remote area of the desert, it would be impossible for an officer to show up quickly, but this was still a highly traveled route (I-15 from LA to Vegas), and the psycho was still traveling very slowly (making it easy for an officer to catch up from either direction). I was also witnessing continued aggressive behavior from this psycho, who was weaving all over the road, intentionally pulling up in front of trucks and hitting the brakes, and intentionally swerving into the lanes of other drivers. I called 911 again, and asked when an officer could get to us. They couldn't tell me, but just that one was en route. I again provided my position. I explained again the urgency of the situation. If this person was not stopped, there was a decent chance they would hit and kill someone. I suggested that we were approaching the small town of Baker, and that an officer from that town could wait, look for my car, and pull over the guy ahead of me. They told me that they would "try" but might not be able to get it done. An excuse was provided that there was a "shift change" going on. Baker is very tiny, and any officer there could easily get into position within 5 minutes, or at least get on the road and catch up if they missed us. About 5 minutes later, we reached Baker. Nothing.
8:20pm Still nothing. Now the psycho was turning his sights back onto me, slowing down to as little as 45 mph, trying to get me parallel with him. I slowed down, too. No way I was going to get to this guy's side. I called 911 again and informed them of what was going on. The idiot dispatcher said, "Sir, you can't drive 45 mph on this highway. That's against the law. If he's going that slow, you're going to have to pass him." This dispatcher was aware of what had happened prior with the person trying to run me and others off the road. This might be the worst advice ever. I told the dispatcher that I would much rather break a traffic law than get on this psycho's right. I refused to speed up and pass him. We then turned to the subject of why no officer had shown up for 33 minutes. This wasn't simply a report of a reckless or drunk driver. This was someone who was seriously trying to maim or kill people by intentionally running them off the road at 70 mph. I told them once again that this was extremely serious, and that someone might die or seriously get hurt if this person wasn't taken off the road. I was put on hold, and then told that they would position an officer further down I-15. I was told to look for an officer parked on the side of the road, and then flash my hazards when I passed him. Once the officer saw this, he would pull over the car ahead of me matching the description I gave. I was happy to hear that this plan was in place, and anxiously waited for the sight of the CHP officer.
8:38pm After what seemed like an eternity, I finally saw what I had been looking for since this whole nightmare started. A CHP officer was sitting on the side of the road at the small mining town of Mtn Pass, about 12 miles from the state line. I slowed down, flashed my hazards, and waited for the officer to nail this guy. Even if the officer didn't witness the offenses, given the serious nature of the accusation, they were planning to detain him anyway on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, including performing drug and alcohol testing, which he likely would have failed. For the first time in my life, the flashing lights of a police officer behind me would be a welcome sight.
Except it didn't happen. Nothing. The officer stayed on the side of the road. I thought maybe he was just speeding up from a stopped position and was just catching up. After two minutes, he was nowhere in sight. Are you kidding me?!
8:40pm I reported this amazing lapse to 911. I said that we were getting close to the state line, and this psycho was about to get away. "Don't worry," the dispatcher told me, "You still have 10 miles until the border. We'll get him."
8:53pm I crossed into Nevada. About 3 miles before the border, the guy sped up and got way ahead of me. By the time I got to the border, he was long gone. I continued into Vegas, facepalming the rest of the way.
I called the CHP from Vegas and complained about this. They looked into it, and I spoke to a sergeant today. Here was what I was told:
- Due to the shift change at that time, there was no CHP officer in Baker, as usual. He had to leave from the headquarters in Barstow, and catch up. It was too far for him to catch up at that point, given our position.
- I asked why the normal police (not CHP) in Baker weren't called in to handle this, given the severity of the situation. I was told that only one police officer works out of Baker, and that "getting him ready, into his car, and onto the road would have taken too long", an assertion I reject given that they had a lot of time to get this done (and because the psycho was traveling slowly). I was also told that communication between the CHP and the Baker police "has to be done through dispatch" and would have taken a long time. What?!
- The officer waiting at Mtn Pass didn't know my position because of a "radio communications failure". He was expecting me to be there "a little bit later" so therefore wasn't watching closely for my hazards. You know, because watching for an extra 15 minutes for a car driving by with his hazards on is so difficult.
- The sergeant agreed that the instruction from the dispatcher to "not drive 45 mph" and instead try to pass this psycho was incorrect, and that I did the correct thing by refusing.
All in all, epic fail on the part of the CHP.
Even allowing for the shift change issues, they could have easily coordinated with the police in Baker to nail this guy (and didn't), instead choosing to try to catch up from 60 miles back. Then they position a guy in Mtn Pass who is daydreaming and somehow misses the signal I was told to give him -- all in a window of about 20 minutes where he had to watch intently. (It would be more understandable if he had to watch for this signal for 5 hours or something.)
Bottom line: If you want to commit deadly acts of road rage, the stretch to do so is between Barstow, CA and the Nevada state line.
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Originally Posted by anonamoose
