Halloween 2017. I just picked up a car in Plano, TX, on the northern outskirts of Dallas. It was getting close to rush hour, and the customer strongly suggested that I stay off Central Expressway (75) if I was heading downtown. He said that Hillcrest would be a much better path for me, so as not to sit in bumper to bumper traffic.
I started thinking about trick or treating as a kid, and how excited I was each year to dress up in a new costume. Then I remembered my old friend Tony Vitale, a detective with the Tampa Police who I had known for years. He said that Halloween looks fun from the outside, but there is truly a whole lot of crimes that go down on this scary night. He always said stay home and stay safe.
Perhaps I was too deep in thought, because I pulled up to a light and noticed that the outside lane I had been traveling in was a right turn only lane now. I slowly crawled the last fifty feet to the red light, and then it turned green so I hit the gas and shot over one lane to the left as I sped through the intersection. I wasn't proud of this move, but I had left myself little choice. I hated it when I saw other people do this move, but it was done and over. Or so I thought.
I could see a car in my rearview mirror maneuvering wildly to catch up with me. Apparently I had pissed him off with my unorthodox move, and I have discovered that often people who don't like your driving will chase you down to chew you out with a good tongue lashing. I kept driving along steadily, and said a little prayer that God would send this person peacefully on their way.
When the other driver caught up and was right beside me, he swung his car over at mine, and I had to react quickly to swerve out of his way. The car swerved at me again, and I had to go so far to the right that my tires skidded against the curb. I started to speed up, and the guy quickly got in front of me and slammed on his brakes. I turned my wheel hard left and went two lanes over to the left, confusing and no doubt frustrating this man who seemed to be trying to teach me a lesson. He came after me, continuing to swing his car over at me. I was convinced that if I didn't swerve out of his way each time, he would have happily smacked into me.
I'm no stranger to road rage, but this man seemed diligent and determined. An old tactic I've used before is to go real slow, then the angry driver simply gets bored because you won't play with him. Not this fellow, he sat right on my back bumper, and then he zoomed around in front of me and kept on tapping my brakes to irritate me. Frankly, I was a lot more concerned than I was irritated. This was getting interesting.
It seemed like this gentleman was going to get payback one way or the other. But payback for what? I hadn't been anywhere near him when I cut through the intersection, he had to catch up with me to start this misbegotten chase. I sped up, and so did he, and then I could see through peripheral vision that he was leaning out his window, yelling and waving his arm. I tried to ignore him, pretend I didn't notice him, but he wouldn't stop. As much as I've learned to avoid eye contact with road ragers, I was so curious I just had to look over. And that's when I saw him holding up a police badge.
Suddenly I felt a sense of dread fill me up inside, and I felt like I was in big trouble. I wondered why the guy wasn't in uniform and wasn't in a cop car. I know there are unmarked undercover vehicles, but this looked like a 1990's model Pontiac which had not been taken care of, and that gave me further doubts. I have heard lots of stories about innocent people being pulled over by a car carrying a badge or blue lights, only to discover that it wasn't a real police officer. People have been robbed, raped, and killed in these situations. Unless maybe this was an off-duty cop.
It was time to take action and end this situation before it got worse, one way or the other. As we got near the LBJ freeway, I hit the brakes hard and made a right turn on the feeder road and the other car flew by me. Then the crazy driver made a U-turn and came back towards oncoming traffic so that he could follow me on the feeder road. I saw in my mirror that he nearly slammed into two cars in an effort to catch up with me.
"This guy wants me bad," I murmured to myself.
As I saw the Valley View mall on my right, I saw a big intersection at the entrance. And then I saw
a boomerang lane, and I had my escape plan. I call the boomerang lane and special lane to the far left where you can make a U-turn at freeway interchanges from the feeder road on one side to the feeder road on the other side of LBJ freeway. There were three lanes as we approached, I got into the middle one and my pursuer was in the far right. As we neared the intersection, at the last possible second I shot over two lanes into the boomerang lane, which is separated from the other lanes by a large concrete divider. I looked in the mirror and saw the maniac climb on top of his car, waving his arms and screaming. He looked like he was about to have a seizure.
Once I got calmed down, I called my old buddy Detective Tony Vitale and told him about what happened. He laughed and asked, "What are you so upset about? You got away didn't you?"
"Well, yes."
"He doesn't sound like a cop to me, and I know what I'm talking about."
"But what if he was by any chance?"
"Off duty means off duty. A cop can't engage you in a high speed chase because he saw you do something he doesn't approve of when he's off the clock."
I found a party downtown and am about to go in and enjoy myself. Happy Halloween!
