Restaurateur decries ‘racial remarks’ after road rage incident

HALIFAX — A video of a man confronting a woman in Halifax and accusing her of driving slowly because of her “Asian” heritage is getting tens of thousands of views online.

Eric McIntyre was with his partner Tuesday when he says another motorist got out of his BMW, approached their vehicle and explained through their car window why he had passed them earlier on the highway.

McIntyre posted the 22-second video on his Facebook page — it captures the man saying, “Maybe it’s an Asian thing,” to the woman driving.

“It’s just completely unacceptable,” McIntyre said. “I mean, we were in shock.”

“This is crazy that this is still happening in 2018, that people are still racist and people have these kind of racial remarks and to be that aggressive and dangerous toward us is absolutely just scary. It’s scary.”

McIntyre said he shared the video online to show his family and friends what the couple encountered while driving.

The post had been viewed about 36,000 times and generated more than 270 shares by Wednesday afternoon.

McIntyre, who co-owns the Kitsune Food Co. restaurant, said the behaviour was frightening for the pair as they headed to work.

McIntyre says the driver who confronted them was aggressively tailgating them on the highway, cut them off and got out of his vehicle three times before he approached them in the video.

“This guy is claiming that we were driving too slow but we were trying to get to work on time driving the same we drive every time to go into work — it was just ridiculous,” he said.