Dori’s terrifying encounter with road rage

“I was 17-years-old. I was a punk and I was an idiot.”

Dori’s most vivid birthday memory is of the day he turned 17. It was also the last day he would ever flip anybody off because what started as an innocent car ride to pick up a friend turned into a terrifying encounter with road rage.

Dori was on his way to pick up Christine for a small birthday party at his house. It was a beautiful, sunny October day, and Dori had the window of his bright red ’74 Plymouth Duster rolled down.

Driving up 28th in Ballard, a truck blew through an uncontrolled intersection so Dori flipped the unknown driver off.

It was an overreaction to be sure – the other driver jumped out of his car and started running at the Duster. Dori saw it in his rear view mirror, so he took off.

A right turn, then a left turn. He zigged and zagged through a few side streets thinking, “I have to shake this guy.”

As Dori turned down another side street, it was like a scene out of a movie. He looked in his rearview mirror and the truck came flying up the street behind him.

But Dori was stuck. One of the side streets he turned down was particularly narrow. Cars were parked on the right side and the left side, and a car was taking it’s time, gingerly pulling out of a driveway and blocking the entire road.

As Dori concentrated, trying to send signals to the car in front of him -‘Go! Go! Go!’ – a hand reached in through his driver-side window. The man grabbed his shirt collar and yelled, “Get out of the car!”

The car backing out of the driveway had taken off, and with the man’s hand on Dori, he knew this may be his best chance. He stepped on it.

But the man didn’t let go, running alongside the car.

“You better stop!”

Dori, petrified, yelled back. “You better let go!” He kept accelerating.

All of the sudden, the man’s feet were dragging alongside of the car. With one hand on Dori’s collar and the other on his arm, the man would let himself be dragged by the speeding car, run for a few steps, then fall to be dragged again.

Panicked, Dori thought of his best way out. “There is a parked car on the left, and if I drive right alongside this parked car at 20 miles an hour, I can drag him into the car.”

He also realized that could very possibly kill the man. Instead, he continued into another intersection, still dragging the man.

Suddenly Dori slammed on the brakes. He grabbed the man’s arm as best he could, pulled him towards the car, and punched him in the face.

The man tumbled away from the car and Dori sped towards Christine’s house.

“Get in, get in, get in! We have to get out of here.”

With a little extra adrenaline, the pair headed back to Dori’s house. He didn’t tell his mom what happened, she would only worry. He did tell his brother in case something was to ever happen to him.

“I thought if this guy ever sees me again, he’s going to kill me.”

It was the last time Dori ever gave someone the finger. It was the first and last time he ever punched someone. And it was afterwards, that he first started traveling with either a baseball bat or a crowbar next to him in the Duster.