Keep your hand gestures to yourself

I want to share an incident that happened to me the other morning just to remind everyone about the danger of responding to “Road Rage.” I was on my way to work 5:30 a.m. westbound on 16th at 4th. I had just gotten through the intersection and moved to the left lane to avoid the right turn traffic. I’ve been taking this route for over 8 years.

I had just gone through the Avenue A light when out of nowhere this truck flying up on me whips around me, just misses my bumper and whips back in front of me then slows down while looking in his mirror. So being the mature adult I am, I gave him a hand gesture (that’s what the State Trooper called it). This must have pushed the right combination of buttons because he slowed down to a crawl. As I went to go around him on the right he swerved in front of me so I tried to go around on the left and he swerved back in front of me and slammed on his brakes. I narrowly missed hitting him and the car behind me narrowly missed hitting me.

At this point I realized this was going south fast and these are the things you read about. I called 911 and was giving the dispatcher the license and description when I saw an AZ State Trooper headed east so I waved him over. He made a u turn and came up behind me and came to my window and asked what the problem was? I pointed at the guy in front of me and said he had stopped and wouldn’t let me pass.

While he was talking to the other driver, I was finishing with 911. He then let the other driver go and came back and said “he said you started this by making a gesture” so I guess in Arizona State Trooper land (i.e., the open highway) it is perfectly acceptable to stop traffic and almost cause a pile up because someone makes a gesture at you.

YPD did show up and I told them my side of the story. So kudos to YPD and thumbs down to that trooper. And remember to keep your gestures to yourself. LYLE MOODY Yuma