To feel shaken by this incident and want to leave work?

Apparently it's an offence to deliberately do that. If you got the vans registration or if there were cctv/cameras about then contact police

It is really hard not to hate men sometimes. My mate was driving along, stopped at the traffic lights, car drew up alongside her, guy wound the window down and said "Oi slag, suck my dick" and as the lights changed he drove off laughing. There are some bloody vile horrible men out there who derive pleasure from shocking and distressing women and do not have to even lay hands on them to do so, they feel invincible in their cars. I am so sorry this happened to you,not surprised you are upset and shocked. We should be allowed to go out and lead our lives without our peace being upset by gits like this

Do you think in the 30 hours since she posted

1. someone else might have suggested that?
2. a new day of work might have started?

That's awful, OP. I hope you'll be able to put it behind you but in these situations, it's not the being wet, is it? It's the encounter with revolting brutish people - which always comes as a shock.

It was absolutely not a personal thing - they would have targeted any woman (bet they wouldn't have dared do this to a man though) and you just happened to be there. They are the lowest of the low. I hope you feel better soon and I defnitely think you should be allowed to go home and change. It was basically an assault!

I'd walk that road again today or tomorrow at the latest and look for cameras, and rthen enquire within if you can see some. If they are the back area of shops with any kind of window or entrance I think they'd be highly likely to have cameras up. You'd be surprised how many houses have now too. We had a car accident (non fault) on a quiet residential street and were thrilled to find one of the houses on the other side of the road had captured it all perfectly.

If you feel up to it, do report it. It will probably help you feel better, and there's at least a small chance that the officer taking the report will say "Hold on, there's CCTV right near there, let me take a look".

@OuterSpaceCadet *But more than that, it was done by men, to a woman walking alone, with a misogynist slur thrown in too (just in case you hadn't guessed they were pathetic little pricks).

All these little "nothing terrible in the grand scheme of things" incidents add up. They serve to remind women of our position in our deeply unfair patriarchal society. If you're one of the many women who've already experienced male violence, incidents like this are retraumatising.

If misogyny wasn't so entrenched it would be classified a hate crime*.

^ exactly this.
Loathsome individuals.

Why dont you just ask him outright? Dont assume he'll say no.

"I still hope to this day it totally f*cked up his routine of buying anything from that bakery ever again."

Legend! 💯

They bloody well should do. The deliberately splashing thing is already a crime, but the shouting of the insult would seem in my amateur non-legal opinion to elevate it to the status of a hate-motivated crime (misogyny in this case). If it was a work van, and they can track it down, then they might find themselves getting sacked - which might make them reconsider their behaviour in the future. (I mean it probably won't, but one can hope).

Sometimes young blokes are absolute pillocs. They probably know they can’t have you so have to come up with ‘witty’ ripostes in front of their equally brain dead mates.

I am very sorry that this happened to you and you are not at all unreasonable to feel shaken. I remember being quite heavily pregnant and some young guys making lewd comments from their wound down window about someone getting there first and they still would etc and I just looked down at my belly and rolled my eyes at them. They then called me slapper for ages in a traffic jam so all could hear as I walked past.

I felt just like you did. It’s horrible and they are dreadful - worse in your case as the bastards splashed you too. Sadly, you will probably always remember it - I do. But just realise how sad and pathetic they are. No one happy or normal behaves like this.
Sorry again this happened to you. Utter wankers.

This TOTALLY grinds my gears, I watched this happen years ago when my youngest was at school and I had dropped her off. On my way home I followed a young lad in a white van deliberately drive into a puddle, soaking a young girl who was dressed for work and who was clearly upset.
I was in full menopausal rage-mode on that day, and so I bloody followed him, to a very busy local bakery where he got out and went in, so I parked up and followed him in and confronted him in the line, in front of the whole shop "I have just watched you and need to ask why you just deliberately drove through a huge puddle and soaked a young girl, who was just walking on the pavement?"
He looked at me as everyone turned to stare at him and just left the shop without uttering a single word, feeling like cock-of-the-walk and much to the delight of the women behind the counter, I then bought a massive belgian bun and left..
I still hope to this day it totally f*cked up his routine of buying anything from that bakery ever again.

But to ask the question, when in the world would you catch a woman doing this? You just wouldn't, men can be absolute twats at times and we can only hope karma comes back to bite these ones, on the arse..

Hope you're okay now.. ❤️

People are just nasty idiots and brave when they are in their cars. This has happened twice to me. I didn't get a car until my daughter was 1 so walked everywhere.

First time I was walking on a main road - was a warm summer day but heavens opened and torrential rain. Put cover over pram thank goodness. Car went past and purposely drove into a huge puddle (which other cars avoided) and drenched me.

Second time was walking again on main road holding my 1 year old daughter while my mum pushed pram. Again summer and it had been raining earlier. Car came speeding along- I knew exactly what was going to happen but there was nowhere to go t9 avoid in time, young guy with female passenger obviously showing off - deliberately drove into pot hole filled with rain and saturated myself, daughter and mum. I was fuming!

When it happens it really affects you and makes you angry and upset. You'll feel better after a couple of days. Some people are just arseholes and they know who to do it to. Especially using disgusting language like that, they wouldn't do it to a male.

I wouldn't ask my boss if I could go home I would be telling him BTW.

I’m glad you went home and that your boss was okay about it. I am sorry for what happened to you - it’s horrible- and I would certainly report it to the police. I think you’ll find they will listen to what you have to say. That driver needs to be penalised for what he did.

I'm sure we can be sympathetic to overworked and overstretched police service, but our politicians and senior civil servants wouldn't have drafted the legislation, debated it, voted on it and passed it if they didn't think it was a problem and didn't want it to be used. A class of people who're generally ferried around by chauffeurs and who very rarely have to tramp the pavements in the rain have actually done something to try and protect ordinary people from this kind of abuse and ensure they have some redress in law. So we might as well use it.

Now there's an argument that, as more legislation comes onto the statute books, we need more human resources in law enforcement and the courts service to ensure it can be addressed. Maybe our new government (headed by an ex CPS official, after all) might want to tackle it. But a shortage of personnel isn't really an argument for not reporting crimes, surely?

Exactly. If an action has been designated as a crime, then by definition you cannot be wasting police time in asking them to investigate it.

No they don't.

It's literally what they're for. The solution to poor distribution of low resources is not to just stop using those resources.

But this is a vehicle related crime, like speeding and parking over a dropped kerb or getting stuck on a box junction

100% they have time

Friend being broken into by an armed gang whilst she was at home
Not so much

The way to get the government to pump more resources into the police is NOT by deciding your assault isn’t serious enough to warrant reporting it. They need to understand the true extent of (even petty) crime that is making society break down and people lose trust in one another and lose confidence in the police, in a death by a thousand cuts type way. The police also need to build up profiles to detect patterns of criminal activity. People who go around assaulting others usually start small and build up confidence to bigger things because they are unchecked at entry level. Flashers turning into rapists is a case in point. Someone willing to speed up to splash a passer by might well build up the confidence to indulge in other dangerous driving. Or one of their “pranks” might result in somebody getting seriously hurt.

I think the police take firearms issues very seriously. A colleague of mine’s mum inherited a load of WW2 weapons when her father died. She called the police to tell them and there was an armed response unit at her door within 20 minutes.

How long do you think her working day is?

What a vile thing to do to someone absolute scum

I’m so sorry thats horrible. What an absolute loser they are.

if your boss hasn’t suggested going home to change and you don’t feel you can ask, then could you just stand under the hand dryer and dry off that way? Or is there a gym nearby with a hairdryer? Not ideal but saves you being cold.

I'd report it.

If you can try to get the company name by asking the petrol station to look at their CCTV for that time I would contact the company too.

If it's a larger company then the van is likely to have a tracker in (mine does for example, they know where, when, what speed you are doing and even if you open the door!), so they will be able to see for themselves who was in the van at that time at that location. If it's a smaller company then probably not unfortunately.

Fingers crossed the bastards get their comeuppance at some point.

I don't know what goes through some people's heads. I remember some twat speeding up past my dad who was walking the dogs and spooked them on purpose. I wonder what makes them think "I'll do something to make someone's day a little bit worse". I'm so sorry this happened to you