Hello, Concealed Coalition! Austin Davis here. Thank you for sending in your questions. This week’s question is great. It says,
“Hey Austin, what should I do if someone approaches my car in a road rage incident?”
This is a fabulous question. As a matter of fact, if you talk to the FLP lawyers, you’ll find out that road rage is probably one of the number one, if not the number one situation that results in a legal defense for self-defense.
First Things First…
The first step in a road rage situation management is avoiding a road rage incident.
So what do we need to do?
If someone takes offense to something we did in our driving and cuts us off or approaches us, put two hands up and say these words: “I’m sorry.”
Let them have the big win so you can drive away for another day.
Next thing with the road rage incident is making sure we lower our profile and increase our options if we are picked out as a victim of a road rage incident. For example, make sure when you park, there’s a distance between you and the car in front of you so you can see the tires touch the roadway in front.
If you get a chance, hopefully you can also stop on either one of the outside lanes as opposed to the middle lanes. This way if someone does approach, you can drive away.
Should I use my firearm in a road rage incident?
When it comes to saying, “Okay, I’m just going to go ahead and shoot somebody at a road rage incident”, make sure you understand that firearms are a very limited tool for a very narrow set of circumstances. If you’re going to use a firearm remember the three keys:
- Firearms are designed to save human life.
- Firearms should not be used to harm innocent life.
- Firearms are a tool of last resort.
How do these three things relate to road rage?
Number one – designed to save human life: If someone gets out in a road rage and starts kicking your call and snapping your mirrors off and you decide to use your gun, is that to protect human life? Or is it protecting your ego because they’re tearing up your car?
Number two – not harming innocent life: If you’re shooting at a car, and the bullet could go through the car glass, potentially hurting someone in the car next to you or down in the way or in a parking lot, you can’t use the firearm to protect yourself. You can’t predict the path of the bullet and whether or not it will hurt someone innocent, so it doesn’t meet the second requirement.
Number three – a tool of last resort: If you look at the video dash cams or surveillance cams in many of these situations, there were so many chances for these parties to just de-escalate. Remember, what’s the first rule of de-escalation? Don’t escalate the situation.
So should you be worried about road rage? Yes. Should you have a plan for road rage? Yes? Should your plan be awareness and de-escalation as a primary tool? 100%.
Please keep these questions coming in. These are well thought out, and I think as a community, we do better when your questions come in and we answer them as a group.
And as always, remember to be a guardian always and a warrior when needed.
