A Mississauga, Ont., man is warning fellow drivers to stay calm on the road after capturing a bizarre case of road rage on camera, after a seemingly innocuous interaction on the road suddenly escalated.
Rob Golfetto told Global News he was driving home from work on Hurontario Street in Mississauga Wednesday afternoon when he first encountered the other driver, who he said was driving erratically.
“She switched into the right lane as we approached a red light, and then swiftly switched back into my lane and slammed on the brakes, causing me to slam on my brakes and lay on the horn,” said Golfetto. The other driver responded with a rude hand gesture. Golfetto said said she gestured to him again when he passed her in the opposite lane.
“I slowed down as I switched lanes and gave her a look and wanted to see what her deal was – she just held the middle finger out at me,” he said.
After passing her, he looked through his rear-view mirror, and was shocked to see the woman had gotten out of her car and was approaching his. That’s when Golfetto said he put his car into park and rolled up the windows for safety, and took out his phone.
In the video shared with Global News and posted online, the woman can be seen coming up behind Golfetto’s car and hurling an object, causing the rear window to shatter. Initially in shock, he said it was a mason jar the woman threw at his car. “I don’t know who keeps mason jars in their car, or what that’s used for, but yeah, it was a mason jar,” he said.
Golfetto said as he got out of his vehicle, he could see the woman sprinting back to her dark SUV, before speeding off in the opposite direction.
While he was careful not to include the woman’s license plate in an edited version he shared Reddit over concerns for her privacy, Golfetto shared the full video with the Peel Regional Police later that night. He said he expects the woman to be charged and held to account for her dangerous actions.
“I just don’t think that’s something you should be able to do and walk away Scot-Free,” he said.
Elliott Silverstein with the CAA said the incident underscores how quickly events can escalate on the road.
“Obviously you’re reacting to the moment and sometimes the adrenaline kicks in, but really you want to make sure whether you’re a pedestrian, a driver, whatever it may be, that you are protecting yourself, protecting others on the road,” he said.
Golfetto thinks it may be a sign of the times, with stress likely having led to the other driver going from zero-to-sixty after a honk. “You don’t know what someone’s going through and it could just take the wrong word for them to snap,” he said, encouraging others not to escalate an encounter if they ever find themselves in a similar situation.
While he was not injured and the window has since been replaced, after pulling glass out of his back seat on Friday Golfetto said it was a good thing he was driving alone.
“What if I had my baby cousin in the back seat there and all that glass that shattered fell into her face?” he said. “What if that was someone else with their own children in the back seat? What if that glass flew into my eye and made me go blind in an eye?”
Global News contacted Peel Regional Police about the matter, but a spokesperson said the information had not yet been entered into the system and was unable to comment further.