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This is a story from a couple of months ago. Like a real drama this one unfolds in 3 acts (actually 4, but I consider one as an introduction). It also involves the kind of coincidence that you can only see in fiction with the weakest of plots, yet reality is sometimes stranger than fiction.
Introduction) I was driving to my university after a weekend. My brother was with me in the car, as he would be driving it back home after dropping me off. We had just passed a construction site were one lane was closed, so there was quite a bit of traffic, with the right lane being one truck after another. I was passing them in the left lane and while doing so a nice line of cars was building up behind me. Driving just at the speed limit means you're far from the fastest car on a Belgian freeway, most people have no problem driving 5 or 10 kph over the limit. One driver was less pleased than all the others though. We could see him pulling to the right lane just in front of a truck and trying to pass the complete line and us in the right hand lane. He wasn't quite fast enough though, as we were next to the truck before he could overtake us. Seeing as no one would let the guy back in line he was stuck behind that truck for some time.
1) Of course, if that was all there is to this story it wouldn't turn up here. Some 5 minutes later I had passed the line of trucks and was back in the right lane, the line of cars behind me had passed me in turn. One car however, didn't pass me, and you get no points for guessing who it was. It was indeed our lovely chap from the introduction, a 50-something guy in an old, cheap car which seemed like he bought if from a 18-year old who still thinks the whole 'no fear' style is cool. He was gesturing wildly to get us to pull over, while he had an orange warning light flashing in his car. Needless to say I didn't think pulling over would have been a good idea and when he started to swing towards us like he was going to push us of the road I had my brother call the police. While my brother was doing that the other guy decided to chance tactics and got in front of me and started slowing down. (Which seems counter-productive if your pissed off about me slowing you down, but well...). It didn't take long for us to be slowed down to about 60 kph, half the max speed and at that point I was getting rather scared. Stopping with that guy around didn't seem like a good idea, and passing him was almost worse, I'd bet money he'd try to cut me off whichever way I went and other traffic was speeding by twice as fast as us, so there'd be the danger of hitting them as well. At that time, for reasons still rather unclear, he decided to pull over onto the emergency lane himself. I passed him, still very cautious and went on my way again. They guy stayed on the shoulder of the road as long as I could still see him in my mirrors. In the meantime my brother had given the license plate number to the police and relayed what was happening.
2) Luck wasn't on our side though and as I kept to the speed limit the other guy didn't. He caught up to us again and even though he had stopped and let us go on earlier he had clearly reversed his decision. Again he was gesturing us to pull over, though traffic was a bit heavier now and he didn't repeat his dangerous manoeuvres. I decided to get off on the next off-ramp to get away from him as my brother phoned the police again. However, the guy now started tailgating so turning off the freeway would be dangerous and he could still follow us anyway. The last off-ramp before I the one I had to take seemed to be the one for him though and we thought we had seen the last of him, but then we wouldn't get a third act, so you know more is coming up.
3) Remember he took the off-ramp just before the one I was going to take ? Well, with my destination it doesn't really matter which one you take, it's purely personal preference. His preference was the first one, mine the second. Yes, we managed to piss off the one guy on the freeway that had nearly the exact same destination as us. Imagine my surprise as I was turning into the street where I was going to park and see him, in his car, waiting to turn out of that street. He made a U-turn and for the third time he decided following me was a good waste of his time. Now I wasn't planning on getting out of my car and showing him were I lived, so I circled the block once, while my brother phoned the police a third time. The guy kept following and I decided enough was enough. I pulled over near fast-food stand with a lot of people, which my brother relayed to the police. I got out and confronted him, loudly asking why he was following us, while my brother asked the people waiting there for help. The guy had made a quick turn-around though. In his car he had been doing life-threatening manoeuvres, out of his car he seemed calm. The fact that he, a skinny 50-year old, was now facing two 20-year olds, the smallest of which had 10cm and 15 kilos on him might have had something to do with that though. My recollection of all that happened between that and the police arriving is pretty bad though, but the gist of the conversation between us is in the next couple of lines.
- Why the *** are you following us ?
* Because you were doing 60kph on a freeway and that's illegal and someone had to tell you. (Actually we did, after he cut us off)
- We've called the police three times, by now they are on their way here, are you seriously going to wait for them to tell them what you think we did was illegal after all the stuff you did and which has already been reported ?
* Yes
So we waited for the police to arrive.
Once the police arrive it was mainly giving the story, as above. It was rather nice to see the police searching trough the guys car for anything that shouldn't be there. The best part, hearing one of them saying 'Can we get him for impersonating a police officer for using an orange light to try and pull people over?' I actually have no idea what happened to him after that, whether he got charged with anything or not, but I'm hoping he has been. With all the time lost waiting for the police and giving statements I lost the better part of a quite enjoyable evening with my friends, though giving 'high speed car chases and the police' without having to lie did make up for that for a bit.
Introduction) I was driving to my university after a weekend. My brother was with me in the car, as he would be driving it back home after dropping me off. We had just passed a construction site were one lane was closed, so there was quite a bit of traffic, with the right lane being one truck after another. I was passing them in the left lane and while doing so a nice line of cars was building up behind me. Driving just at the speed limit means you're far from the fastest car on a Belgian freeway, most people have no problem driving 5 or 10 kph over the limit. One driver was less pleased than all the others though. We could see him pulling to the right lane just in front of a truck and trying to pass the complete line and us in the right hand lane. He wasn't quite fast enough though, as we were next to the truck before he could overtake us. Seeing as no one would let the guy back in line he was stuck behind that truck for some time.
1) Of course, if that was all there is to this story it wouldn't turn up here. Some 5 minutes later I had passed the line of trucks and was back in the right lane, the line of cars behind me had passed me in turn. One car however, didn't pass me, and you get no points for guessing who it was. It was indeed our lovely chap from the introduction, a 50-something guy in an old, cheap car which seemed like he bought if from a 18-year old who still thinks the whole 'no fear' style is cool. He was gesturing wildly to get us to pull over, while he had an orange warning light flashing in his car. Needless to say I didn't think pulling over would have been a good idea and when he started to swing towards us like he was going to push us of the road I had my brother call the police. While my brother was doing that the other guy decided to chance tactics and got in front of me and started slowing down. (Which seems counter-productive if your pissed off about me slowing you down, but well...). It didn't take long for us to be slowed down to about 60 kph, half the max speed and at that point I was getting rather scared. Stopping with that guy around didn't seem like a good idea, and passing him was almost worse, I'd bet money he'd try to cut me off whichever way I went and other traffic was speeding by twice as fast as us, so there'd be the danger of hitting them as well. At that time, for reasons still rather unclear, he decided to pull over onto the emergency lane himself. I passed him, still very cautious and went on my way again. They guy stayed on the shoulder of the road as long as I could still see him in my mirrors. In the meantime my brother had given the license plate number to the police and relayed what was happening.
2) Luck wasn't on our side though and as I kept to the speed limit the other guy didn't. He caught up to us again and even though he had stopped and let us go on earlier he had clearly reversed his decision. Again he was gesturing us to pull over, though traffic was a bit heavier now and he didn't repeat his dangerous manoeuvres. I decided to get off on the next off-ramp to get away from him as my brother phoned the police again. However, the guy now started tailgating so turning off the freeway would be dangerous and he could still follow us anyway. The last off-ramp before I the one I had to take seemed to be the one for him though and we thought we had seen the last of him, but then we wouldn't get a third act, so you know more is coming up.
3) Remember he took the off-ramp just before the one I was going to take ? Well, with my destination it doesn't really matter which one you take, it's purely personal preference. His preference was the first one, mine the second. Yes, we managed to piss off the one guy on the freeway that had nearly the exact same destination as us. Imagine my surprise as I was turning into the street where I was going to park and see him, in his car, waiting to turn out of that street. He made a U-turn and for the third time he decided following me was a good waste of his time. Now I wasn't planning on getting out of my car and showing him were I lived, so I circled the block once, while my brother phoned the police a third time. The guy kept following and I decided enough was enough. I pulled over near fast-food stand with a lot of people, which my brother relayed to the police. I got out and confronted him, loudly asking why he was following us, while my brother asked the people waiting there for help. The guy had made a quick turn-around though. In his car he had been doing life-threatening manoeuvres, out of his car he seemed calm. The fact that he, a skinny 50-year old, was now facing two 20-year olds, the smallest of which had 10cm and 15 kilos on him might have had something to do with that though. My recollection of all that happened between that and the police arriving is pretty bad though, but the gist of the conversation between us is in the next couple of lines.
- Why the *** are you following us ?
* Because you were doing 60kph on a freeway and that's illegal and someone had to tell you. (Actually we did, after he cut us off)
- We've called the police three times, by now they are on their way here, are you seriously going to wait for them to tell them what you think we did was illegal after all the stuff you did and which has already been reported ?
* Yes
So we waited for the police to arrive.
Once the police arrive it was mainly giving the story, as above. It was rather nice to see the police searching trough the guys car for anything that shouldn't be there. The best part, hearing one of them saying 'Can we get him for impersonating a police officer for using an orange light to try and pull people over?' I actually have no idea what happened to him after that, whether he got charged with anything or not, but I'm hoping he has been. With all the time lost waiting for the police and giving statements I lost the better part of a quite enjoyable evening with my friends, though giving 'high speed car chases and the police' without having to lie did make up for that for a bit.
Pretty much a set up, because he had nothing to 'pull you over for' until he caused the problem. I hope the police gave him a nice shiny set of bracelets!
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