Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Extremely scary moment when driver blocked my car on a country lane.

449 replies

ginplease8383 · 14/08/2017 17:07

I was out driving on the Blackdown hills today with my 1 year old and 3 year old DD trying to find Wellington monument. I know its pretty easy to find being pretty large but I am a bit of an idiot with driving and thought i knew the way (being relatively local) and it turned out I didn't.

Anyway, I went into a country lane and did a U turn to correct myself as I didn't want to U turn on one of the larger roads and as I was coming out onto the more main road another car (a 4X4 with 2 men in it aged mid 50s) also was doing a u turn (or so i thought initially). The driver blocked my exit out of the junction (They could see me drive up to it) as I attempted to turn left and I assumed he was stopping to turn into my lane so I attempted to veer left and drive around him and he blocked me again. I did it again and he did it again.

I didn't want to stop and wind down my window it being the middle of the countryside and that I had 2 young children in the back but he trapped me. In the end i had to and he wound down his window and he said 'I was just going to ask you how to get to xx', I was upset and panicking by then and screamed at him 'How dare you block my path!! Get out of the way!'. My heart was racing and I called dh straight away and gave him a description of the car just in case and set off hime (I didn't go to Wellington monument in the end).

AIBU? I can kind of understand if there was an accident and they needed a first aider but surely i made it perfectly clear i didnt want to stop- I was shitting myself to be honest.

OP posts:
WindyWednesday · 15/08/2017 08:39

The other car it happened to was a very overtly "girly" car. However the driver was not. They didn't engage at all, but were warning others that this car was prowling around the area looking "so it seemed" for lone female drivers.

Obviously because lone females in isolated areas are the best to ask for directions.

DamnDeDoubtanceIsSpartacus · 15/08/2017 08:41

I think we have an influx of MRA posters.

It's actually good as their posts show how irrational they are.

TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 08:43

DarkerWeb isn't a woman. Ignore.

BigChocFrenzy · 15/08/2017 08:45

Reports in the same neighbourhood of a similar car with 2 men
so
suddenly there are several different men in similar cars getting lost in that particular neighbourhood and choosing to ask lone women for directions
or
the same 2 men have stayed lost for days
or
the most likely explanation: they intend to rape a woman, or to jack a car and a woman driver is much easier to overpower.

Yes, let's hope the MRA influx get bored.

DarkerWeb · 15/08/2017 08:47

TheSparrowHawk

Firstly, I am. Secondly, I doubt you will ever utter a single phrase which exposes your irrational and nasty view of the world quite so succinctly.

TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 08:47

The MRA influx is a good thing. Do you think those hairy handed wankers would bother going on threads pretending to be women if they didn't think MAN was a threat to their ability to intimidate and bully women?

Bemusedandpuzzled · 15/08/2017 08:47

I regularly attend feminist demos against Nazis where there is trouble, and I end up as a 5 foot 4 woman having to face down big aggressive white fascists twice my size. I am not afraid of these men, who genuinely would try to hurt me if they thought they could get away with it. So yes, I do find the Mumsnet level of terror about being spoken to by a man ridiculous. I am not going to be scared out of the city or the countryside by male violence, end of, and nor am I going to let a tiny minority of wankers "stand in" for the vast proportion of decent, kind blokes out there.

Furthermore, we women are not automatically weak, feeble and unable to defend ourselves- I absolutely HATE the way that Mumsnet feminism is constantly representing us as people who can't stand up for themselves, who are just sitting ducks for male violence. It's just an excuse for bigotry a lot of the time. We need to recontact with stronger feminist role models and stop worrying about clowns, gypsies, bogeymen hiding in toilets and all the panoply of Chat magazines gallery of terror.

If you're really that afraid, take some martial arts lessons. Don't accept the limiting status of an automatic victim and don't bloody pass on these anxieties and fears to young girls.

I have to go out to work now.

TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 08:48

That should say MN of course

Gabilan · 15/08/2017 08:48

It seems as though natural selection hasn't taken its course

NS always takes a course, whether or not it's the one you want is another matter. In this case, it would appear to be survival of the thickest.

There is an influx of posters who just have no idea of the lived reality of women's lives. There is enough of a threat of violence that you're just always aware of it. Don't walk there. Don't go at that time of night, don't go on your own. Explain why and you're called hysterical and told to help with your anxiety. Go against this, get attacked and it's "what were you doing there at that time of night?" It's not just the physical violence, it's the threat of it to keep you in line accompanied by the kind of whining on this thread that should you be worried about male violence, it's just not fair on men because not all of them are like that.

kittybiscuits · 15/08/2017 08:48

Trolls and MRAs are available in all genders.

Buttercunt · 15/08/2017 08:50

I mean to be derogatory. I think the lack of basic courtesy and courage is pathetic.

Well that's all well and good then as it isn't the women on this threads, or in general, job to please you. Success.

Original poster
ginplease8383 · 15/08/2017 08:52

Clearly commenting without reading the full thread.

I wasn't screaming in anyones face, we were in different cars. Honestly. Talk about twisting it.

OP posts:
TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 08:52

Bemused, take a moment to read about the hundreds of women killed by men over the last few years. We're these women weak, feeble and unable to defend themselves? Is that why they were killed?

DarkerWeb · 15/08/2017 08:52
Brew

either that or 'fuck off you bloody man' Grin

I'll assume that you are who you say you are and appreciate your sentiments. Hope you're ready to get flamed though.

TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 08:53

Sorry forgot the link kareningalasmith.com/counting-dead-women/

StickThatInYourPipe · 15/08/2017 08:53

Haven't RTFT but just wanted to add I don't think YABU OP. I would have been scared too and I'm quite 'chill' normally.

Original poster
ginplease8383 · 15/08/2017 08:54

What about their courtesy?? Blocking someone in who didn't want to stop? Wouldn't it have been more courteous to have found someone willing? Sod how i might have felt, as long as they got directions.

I think its better to be suspicious at the onset and be pleasantly surprised. Baring in mind that I was making decisions that could have put all 3 of us at risk.

OP posts:
TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 08:56

Gin there's no need to defend your behaviour. We live in a world where a man can rape a woman and people will try to explain away his behaviour, but a woman will be criticised for being 'impolite.'

Buttercunt · 15/08/2017 08:58

Furthermore, we women are not automatically weak, feeble and unable to defend ourselves- I absolutely HATE the way that Mumsnet feminism is constantly representing us as people who can't stand up for themselves, who are just sitting ducks for male violence. It's just an excuse for bigotry a lot of the time. We need to recontact with stronger feminist role models and stop worrying about clowns, gypsies, bogeymen hiding in toilets and all the panoply of Chat magazines gallery of terror.

So you're in agreement that the OP stood up for herself then? Or not, because they weren't carrying the confederate flag or dressed as a clown or...?

TheSparrowhawk · 15/08/2017 09:00

I do not at any point in my life ever have to be in the least bit polite to any man I don't know. I don't have to apologise for that or explain it to anyone. Considering men murder and rape hundreds of women every year I don't feel like I'm the one who has to explain myself.

Elendon · 15/08/2017 09:01

Furthermore, we women are not automatically weak, feeble and unable to defend ourselves

But the OP was clearly not weak, feeble or unable to defend herself and her children. Against two men who three times tried to block her as she made her way on a road with two very young children in the back of her car.

Elendon · 15/08/2017 09:02

Easy pickings!

Aeroflotgirl · 15/08/2017 09:02

Eye roll at the goady fuckers on this thread, there are a lot of them! Op did defend herself, she did not have to give an aggressive wanker directions, he kept blocking her in various times. She shouted out to him and managed to drive away. Good on her.

DamnDeDoubtanceIsSpartacus · 15/08/2017 09:04

Furthermore, we women are not automatically weak, feeble and unable to defend ourselves- I absolutely HATE the way that Mumsnet feminism is constantly representing us as people who can't stand up for themselves, who are just sitting ducks for male violence

I wouldn't like the chances of one woman and some kids against two grown men, would you? Plus, op did stand up for herself, she rebuked them and drove off, and you criticised her.

It's just an excuse for bigotry a lot of the time.

Naming the problem is not bigotry, male violence is a huge problem and ignoring it isn't going to make it go away.

We need to recontact with stronger feminist role models and stop worrying about clowns, gypsies, bogeymen hiding in toilets and all the panoply of Chat magazines gallery of terror

85 000 women are raped each year, not by bogeymen or clowns, by men. That is a problem that needs to be confronted and men need to stop doing that. Women are not making themselves into victims, they are being victimised.

Aeroflotgirl · 15/08/2017 09:05

Directions my arse, most vehicles like that have sat nav, they have internet on their phone so, they coukd access google maps from that. Just an excuse to get op out of her car. When you feel threatened, yiu have every right to be as rude as you want to get out of that situation. Their behaviour was aggressive, blocking her 3 times so she cannot get out, who does that!