Starting a Vendetta !

What does the average driver do when they see another driver backing up and likely to damage their car  ?   They usually sound their horn to alert that other person to a coming danger and that is the reason horns are fitted to cars.

Mostly, the person hooted sees the wisdom of that warning and it saves many a fender bender, but when this happened in the drive through line of a McDonalds restaurant in Wollongong the young woman on the receiving end was so affronted that it was the start of a very serious vendetta.

She not only recruited her partner, who was not present when this incident occurred but took the trouble to complain to Wollongong police. Honking to avoid a collision is not a law breach and this affronted family decided to take the law into their own hands when the police dismissed their complaint.

This was the start of a prolonged stalking and harassment campaign.  They successfully located the home address of the other driver .   The windows of their car were smashed when it sat at the kerb outside their home one night.   That was followed by a barrage of online threats and all this culminated in an explosion that completely wrecked their Ford Ranger many days later.  The police report that this blast could have easily resulted in a death.

Both the 31 year old woman and her 33 year old partner have been arrested and they will face charges laid by the altercation, counter terrorism and  special tactics command on the New South Wales police force.  The man has been charged with using a carriage service to threaten harm,  two counts of using a carriage service to threaten to  kill, two counts of stalking, damage to property, placing explosives near a vehicle with intent to cause harm and threatening a witness. His girlfriend has been charged with being an accessory after the fact to destroy property and stalking with the intention of physical harm.

This six week nightmare is the outcome that many people dread when they get behind the wheel of their car. " Road rage " is a new phenomenon that has affronted other drivers physically attacking people for perceived slights or road discourtesy.  In an extreme form, it can result in a vendetta  that becomes life threatening.

Unfortunately, there is no relief for drivers to avoid this type of anger.  Even a mild toot of the horn to warn of an impending bingle can set off rage in some people and bring a totally unreasonable response.  Perhaps just another example of the stress people feel in coping with the demands of this twenty-first century.  Fortunately, in most cases it just expresses itself in rude hand gestures and shouted profanities.   We have to be really unlucky if it develops into an ongoing vendetta.