Auto driver charges at my car with a stone: Dashcam video shows why

Your presence of mind to apologise as a response was wise & de-escalated things immediately.

BHPian krishnakumar recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I got involved in a road rage incident on 11 Dec in B'lore. We were returning from a long drive when this happened.

Fortunately, nothing happened to us. I captured the whole incident on my dashcam and here’s the video.

Update 1: Car was already going below 30km/h and the puddle was not visible on the road. I noticed the puddle when the Duster ahead causes a big splash (again, clearly because it isn’t visible) and slowed down to move to the left, but didn’t expect the puddle to be so large.

The splash was primarily because there is a depression in the road. So the car dipped into it which I don’t think is apparent in the video. At that point, speeds would be just about 20kph and I would have had to literally stop the car to a crawl if I were to prevent a splash. So up until that point, there was no flags which reasoned that I should come to a crawl.

It was a judgment call because I was worried about losing traction as the surface was extremely slushy. At least based on all my learned experiences so far, it shouldn’t have splashed the guy. Yet it did. So it’s a new learning that I should keep in my mind. Driving in India is crazy.

Udate 2: Two Reasons:

1. I honestly didn't think the splash went inside and even when my wife said the water went inside, I thought that it is unlikely because of the low speeds.
2. Before the guy waved me down, I did apologize (with my hand and bowing of head, didn't open windows) while he was coming alongside me, that is not there in the video. He continued to wave me down even after that because he just wanted to create a ruckus. To keep the video brief, I omitted all of these.

Regarding the "losing traction" bit, yes, given the road condition bringing the car to a 0 from 30km/h (in the distance when I noticed the puddle) would have led to a certain skid which I wanted to avoid. There is no guarantee for the car to have prevented a splash as well. I'm not being "holier than thou"  I know it is frustrating to have water splashed and it is to some extent my fault in the judgement call I made (which is my takeaway from the experience).

But the underlying point is, given weather and road conditions, some of these incidences are beyond our control and losing the cool to a point of smashing someone/their vehicle with a rock is plainly stupid.

Here's what BHPian WorkingGuru had to say on the matter:

Your presence of mind to apologise as a response was wise & de-escalated things immediately.

Stay safe. Hope we all learn to respond similarly & get on with our life with minimal disturbance.

Here's what BHPian jono213 had to say on the matter:

Yeesh, an extremely unsavoury incident. Whenever these guys cause accidents and damage, we are expected to let them go because their incomes are not high but then they can pull off this nonsense and get away with it. Disgusting!

Here's what BHPian bblost had to say on the matter:

You handled it perfectly well. Proud of you.

This was like a triggering video for me since I had once run into this auto driver's brother in Hyderabad. Here's the link.

Not getting into a fight is the best outcome possible.

Here's what BHPian audioholic had to say on the matter:

This thing with Auto drivers or even motorists and splashing water is a very common form of ending up in road rage. But somehow people like him feel that this is done on purpose. My driver had reported this incident when similarly some auto driver got splashed from my Celerio while he was driving it and then the driver came back to take revenge by getting a bottle of water and pouring it back on my driver. Beyond that, he couldn't do much. Just street justice is being attempted with zero brains and emotions running high as to how someone can splash water on him.

I ended up splashing water a few years ago on a two-wheeler rider because my car landed in a pothole filled with water and at the same time the biker was overtaking me even though he knew that place had quite some water. He approached with full rage as to how I could do it. I just asked him what else I would have done and he had no answer.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.