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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:
Gabilan · 14/08/2017 19:28

YANBU. About 30 years ago when I was at secondary school 2 friends and I were stopped by some men in a car who asked us to get into the car with them. We backed away and stuck together. They drove up the road and we saw them stop and talk to some schoolboys. The boys then turned back and asked us why we'd been so rude to people who were only asking directions.

"I was only asking directions" is, it would appear, a stock way of covering tracks. I doubt that was indeed their intention. Even if it was, they really should have been aware of how aggressive their behaviour was likely to appear to a woman travelling with no other adults.

This isn't sexism. Whilst the reasons are many and complex, men are more likely than women to be attackers.

Datun · 14/08/2017 19:29

ScissorBow

junction in a way that looked like they were blocking you in

Nope. They did block her in. Three times.

2 confused people who wanted directions.

Confused people who want directions wind down the window and ask for them. They don't block in another person's car.

You judged their car and them because of their gender and age as probable danger to you and your children.

Entirely and rationally based on her statical chances. And lived experience.

I think you overreacted because you were het up about being lost.

Way to victim blame.

Aeroflotgirl · 14/08/2017 19:31

You did right, he kept blocking your exit, I word have rammed his car if he had refused to move. He was backing you into a dangerous corner. IP sounds very with it, and not confused at all. The fact she has DC in the car would not bother an attacker.

Adviceplease360 · 14/08/2017 19:34

Thank God you're okay op. You definitely did the right thing

Aeroflotgirl · 14/08/2017 19:35

Why are women told to be polite and meek. If they kick up.a stink likevop, their confused and hysterical. I go to kickbox self defence, you are told to make noise, shout scream, attackers dont like it and will probably leave you alone. Her reaction probably saved her.

eddielizzard · 14/08/2017 19:37

yanbu!!!!

as the wonderful margaret atwood said: men are scared women will laugh at them, women are scared men will kill them. and in fact there was a woman who was killed on a cruise the other day - because her partner said she laughed at him!

i digress. the fact is you were in a vulnerable position on your own with two children in the car. those men were being wankers forcing the issue. you clearly didn't want to stop and they wouldn't take no for an answer.

unacceptable!!!!

MeltorPeltor · 14/08/2017 19:38

If he was blocking you going left you could have just gone right if you were worried about them car jacking you and selling your children.

Datun · 14/08/2017 19:38

It infuriates me when people talk about sexism. You don't have to stereotype someone on the basis of their sex, I completely agree.

But this was an aggressive, intimidating act by people who are bigger and stronger than the OP who statistically commit sexually violent crime.

I'm absolutely certain if someone drove alongside the OP, opened their window and said excuse me love, can you help us, she wouldn't have felt worried.

They didn't do that.

DamnDeDoubtanceIsSpartacus · 14/08/2017 19:38

Sure rapunzal will be along any minute now and admit they got it wrong and are now aware that men are much more likely to commit violence than women.

They will apologise to op for their hideous victim blaming.

Any...minute...now...

Anecdoche · 14/08/2017 19:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

brasty · 14/08/2017 19:40

That would have frightened me too. Some people on here are such idiots.

PutTheBunnyBackInTheBox · 14/08/2017 19:43

MeltorPeltor

If he was blocking you going left you could have just gone right if you were worried about them car jacking you and selling your children.

The OP has obviously had a very lucky escape, god knows what could have happened and that is your response? Are you usually a sick fucker?

Original poster
ginplease8383 · 14/08/2017 19:44

ScissorBow- I agree with Jigglytuff. What if they'd pulled me out the car and done goodness knows what with me, left me dumped in a field and left my children in the back of my car or worse? Then everyone would be saying what a silly bitch I was for being so trusting - they were after all, 2 men, it was the middle of some quite desolate and bleak (though it was lovely here today!) countryside when i had two (asleep i think) under 3s in the back and they'd blocked me 3 times.

OP posts:
ShoesHaveSouls · 14/08/2017 19:44

We have no way of knowing whether these men genuinely wanted directions. If they did, surely they should have done something to put a lone woman at her ease, rather than block her in 3 times? Or wave, or wind down the window.

Honestly, this place sometimes.

OP, sounds like your instinct kicked in, and you did the right thing - you trusted your instinct. Even if it was all oh-so-innocent, YWNBU. They can go get directions from someone else.

musicalsangeloftheopera · 14/08/2017 19:44

Can't believe the utter twattishness of some of the replies to this! Hmm

OP, YA-D-NBU.

Aeroflotgirl · 14/08/2017 19:45

If they saw op go left towards thecexit, why did they not hung back and let her exit. What did they have to manouver deliberately 3 times to block her!

Batteriesallgone · 14/08/2017 19:46

If he was blocking you going left you could have just gone right

Did you miss the part where they repeatedly moved their car to block her in? And the bit where OP and other posters confirmed if you go off the side of the road there you are highly likely to get stuck in a ditch (probably their plan tbh)?

Madbengalmum · 14/08/2017 19:46

Jeeez, this thread has certainly bought out the tossers in their droves hasn't it!

I seriusly wonder what alot of these sanctimonious idiots are on. Clearly they live in another world where nothing bad happens.

Aeroflotgirl · 14/08/2017 19:47

Surely they word have sat navs, or maps. Most cars have them in as standard now. Or they could have found a shop or gas station, not a lone woman with 2 young children.

Batteriesallgone · 14/08/2017 19:48

If they've had a number of reports I wonder if these guys just get off on scaring women. So maybe nothing worse would have happened, but it's bad enough to be intimidated for the purposes of someone else's gratification. Anyone thinking women should just shrug that off needs to give their head a wobble.

VisitorFromAlphaStation · 14/08/2017 19:48

I read about something similar yesterday; two cars blocking a female driver with a child on a country road, they were on the way to a local vet, she called the police while driving in the car so they set up a road block further on but the cars escaped in a roundabout and mixed into the traffic. It could be a new way of robbing people. The advice was not to stop and to lock all doors.

Karatecas · 14/08/2017 19:48

I'd have been terrified and I can look after myself! I would not have wound the window down or stoupped the car; anyone who suggests she should have done are being unreasonableness

VisitorFromAlphaStation · 14/08/2017 19:50

If they genuinely wanted directions, why didn't they pull out their smartphones and searched Google Maps? This is 2017 not 1987.

mrscampbellblackreturns · 14/08/2017 19:50

Lordy, I had to re-register after a fairly long absence to say that OP you did totally the right thing.

No normal person would block a car three times to ask for directions - and really, neither of them had a phone with sat nav on it?!

A while ago, lots of people on mn were recommending reading a book called the Gift of Fear - the basic tenet was 'trust your instincts'. And you know if the men were perfectly lovely and harmless well perhaps they should reflect on how their behaviour could scare a woman.

So sad how many idiots are keen to stick the knife into the OP.

Karatecas · 14/08/2017 19:51
  • unreasonable!