A Brush With a Horrible Driver

Integras are fun little cars, but they unfortunately seem to attract bad drivers

Just yesterday I was driving somewhere with my wife and kids, unfortunately at rush hour, when I came upon a horrible driver. By horrible I mean much worse than your average bad driver, which unfortunately seem to come out of the woodwork here come rush hour. I generally try to avoid driving around at that time, but there was nothing I could do to avoid it yesterday.


At first I noticed this second generation Acura Integra driving a few hundred feet behind us, and the car drifted almost into the solid median before the driver jerked it to the right. Then the car sped up and was on our rear like white on rice. I was going about the speed limit, had a barren lane next to me, but this lovely driver decided that was a good time to drive with her front bumper within two feet of my rear bumper.

As if that wasn't enough, I then noticed the lady was driving without any hands on the steering wheel! She was putting her hair back in a ponytail, looking in the mirror and basically doing anything but driving. Finally, as we approached another intersection the driver apparently decided she had enough of tailgating me and so she swerved into the right lane. I said to my wife "that lady is going to hit someone" and then I turned into the leftmost of the double left hand turn bays at the light.

In a flash, the lady in the Integra came sailing into both mine and the other turn bay, fortunately more in the other turn bay, and hit another car. I will credit it to playing video games, but I saw the whole thing in slow-motion and was able to jerk our car to the left to avoid being struck by the Integra.

The other car that was struck had a young couple and a baby in the backseat. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but I suspect their aging Accord was totaled out just because of its low value. I've unfortunately been in that exact same situation and so felt incredibly sorry for the people. We supplied our information to the couple and were able to confirm to the police officer over the phone that the Integra driver was completely at fault.

It's a good thing we volunteered as witnesses, since for reasons I don't understand, the police officer was going to cite the young couple for the accident. So if you witness a car accident and know who is at fault, please supply your information as a witness so justice can be served. The driver of the Integra apparently "forgot" her driver's license and proof of insurance, which did not surprise me considering how she was driving. Hopefully another irresponsible driver was taught a lesson or potentially taken off the roads before she seriously injures or even kills someone.

Drive careful, everyone!