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

[Cynthiaramsey]

It’s been non stop raining where I live for days. I don’t drive so on my dinner I walk to a local Sainsbury’s. Today I waited for the rain to stop and then went out, so I didn’t have an umbrella and I don’t have a coat because even though it’s wet, it’s still warm.

I was walking to Sainsbury’s and the road was clear, then I suddenly heard a car speed up. I didn’t have time to wonder what was going on because before I knew it, they drove speeding into a puddle on the side and splashed me. It was a massive puddle so the water has drenched me! It stopped me in my tracks because it was freezing and all my hair and face were wet. As the van drove off, the guy in the passenger seat wound his window down laughing and shouted “slag!” At me. I feel really upset. I know nothing awful happened in the grand scheme of things but it’s just knowing that they sped up to do that on purpose and then laughed about it and called me a name. I am back in work now but my hair is wet and my clothes are so wet they are stuck to me on one side. I feel freezing cold and want to go home so that I can get changed and then just work my last few hours at home.

Would I be unreasonable to ask? Am I being dramatic? I told my boss what happened because I walked back through the door all wet and he was just saying that they’re idiots etc but hasn’t offered to let me go home to change into something dry. So I feel like he would say no. I just feel a bit sad and miserable now.

Utter shuts, so sorry this happened. What immature, horrible men. I really wonder how pathetic their lives must be to get a laugh out of this. Idiots.

It's all them op, nothing you did and nothing to feel bad about.

How horrible and misogynistic. I don’t know if it is a hate crime but it should be, imagine if they’d done the same to an ethnic minority while yelling an insulting racial slur. That would be a hate crime. I’ve had similar while on my bike, fuckwits in a white van came up behind me at a junction then yelled like banshees. I could easily have fallen off. One did it to me from a bike and I chased him down to his council estate but unlike @ToWonderWhyIBother ’s mum I didn’t catch up with him ☹️

I’m glad you’re home and that your boss was sound. I would be so shaken by this.

It’s great that you are planning to report it. Hopefully there is CCTV from the garage. If they are driving a work van, it would be great to think there would be come-back from the employers.

What scum. Bet they thought it was really funny. Suspect they wouldn’t think the same if it had been done to a relative of theirs!

A few years ago I was driving behind a white van and they were clearly stuffing their gobs with McDonalds and then proceeded to chuck the rubbish out of the car as they drove along. I used 111 to report it as it was truly disgusting and how would they like it if someone came and dumped their McDonalds in their garden or through their letter box.

On a side note, I think karma deals quite well with people like this. People who put out hate like this aren’t going to have good relationships, trust and live, their ability to thrive at work will be limited.

Because like I’ve alluded to many times. They’re too much of a shit house to target someone stronger or even as strong as them. That’s a bullying cunt in a nut shell for you.!

@TheGander that’s a good point about being a hate crime, given they used the word slag. It’s just awful. It would be nice to think there was some pay back for them.

OP I’m so sorry this has happened to you, you were not being unreasonable at all in wanting to go home after such an upsetting incident.

Whoever did this is a very sad and pathetic excuse of man and I pity him to be honest if targeting women in this way makes him feel somehow validated. He is a worthless worm and he probably knows it.

I would report it as an assault so there is some chance he will get his just desserts and be punished for this.
There must be CCTV along that road somewhere.

Glad you are OK now @Cynthiaramsey What a horrible thing to happen. I am so sorry! 😢

And yes pps are right, it IS an offence to do what this 'man' did. If you didn't get his registration though, it may be hard to do anything about it.

But yeah, something similar happened to someone I know last year. She had some bloke call her a fat cunt out of the window, and he deliberately rammed his car door into hers. (She was parked next to him on the car park next to a main foodstore. No reason whatsoever. He was just a horrible bastard.)

She took his registration and reported it to the police immediately. It was classed as assault, and also vandalism. The red paint off his door had transferred onto her white car door, and there was cctv in the car park. So she had proof.

The bloke tried to deny it, but the proof was there (that this lady was telling the truth.) Although it took about 3-4 weeks to get back to her, the Police Officer who took the report said it was his employer's vehicle, and the police had gone through them to sort it. He got the sack. AND he lost the company vehicle. So he paid for what he did! Hopefully something similar happens to this van driver. Maybe the police can source some cctv???

Good luck,

Big man probably showing off to his bro’s.

The fact is in this joke of a country that it’s illegal to splash someone with your car, but screaming misogynistic verbal violence to women is fair game says everything as to why women are angry.

Make no bones about it, if he could get away with mowing you down or punching you in your face for jokes, he would.

Its pure hatred towards women disguised as bants.

That's a horrible thing to happen op. Id absolutely report it, they've committed 2 offences, both of which they wouldn't have done if you were a man.
The police must take this sort of thing seriously.

What a truly shitty thing to do, no wonder youre upset. The only consolation is that it wasnt personal even if it felt like it.
Thats the kind of arseholes they are and thats their own prison sentence.

I'm sorry OP, I'd have gone home too. Glad you're feeling a bit better now!

When my eldest was in nursery I was once on my way to pick him up when a car suddenly swerved onto the pavement and drove straight towards me. I always thought if something like that happened that I'd dive out of the way like you see in films, but I just froze. They turned back onto the road just in time to avoid hitting me and were all jeering through the window but I didn't manage to get any details either except the car colour.

It may seem like an overreaction but I think you should report this to the police. He committed a public order offence shouting ‘slag’ at you not to mention deliberately splashing you. He needs to be found and dealt with, if only to stop him doing it to someone else.

If its a company van get cctv then name and shame the company on your local Facebook page, you won't be the first or the last until their called out. Some people seriously need to grow up. I'm glad you got to go home and could get changed

You rang the nhs to report a crime

No the law doesn’t protect women receiving verbal abuse it would probably just come under freedom of speech, even when it sounds threatening to the recipient.

Thats why they do it. No consequences.

Get this reported, absolutely disgusting behavior to soak you and an offence and a public order offence possibly to shout something abusive at you too. Poor you. A van once slowed down beside me (when I was younger) and the guys thought it was hilarious to shout at me and ask me to give them a BJ, (sorry for course language) I recognized the company and called and politely asked if they had a van out working in the vicinity as I had a message for them, they replied yes and I calmly told them that in response to their pulling up alongside me and jeering at me would they pass on I'd rather eat horseshit that give either of them a BJ as per their request. The receptionist was horrified and my entire office of middle aged men applauded me, noone thought it was OTT and were supportive. There may be CCTV or ANPR, report this.

Street harassment is taken a lot more seriously now: https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-sets-out-law-street-based-sexual-harassment

Unbelievable. Why do such a thing? I mean, I understand why someone would steal your iphone, or push in front of you in a queue, or bib you for not moving fast enough in a traffic jam. They'd be vile arseholes for doing it, but at least it would make sense. But why hurt someone for no reason? For all that moron knows you've just been diagnosed with cancer, or just come from visiting a loved one in hospital.

I'm often woken at 2 or 3 in the morning by a cretin in one of those souped up cars that make a hideous screeching, exploding sound. It obviously amuses him to upset people. Again, no reason. Why modify your exhaust so it sounds like a firework display, and then drive through the neighbourhood waking everyone up? It simply gives him pleasure to hurt people. It's the worst thing about human nature. We all remember being children in the playground and seeing the sheer joy and delight on the face of other kids when someone was punched or thrown in a puddle or hit by the ball. Horrible.😟

I sometimes wonder if this kind of behaviour is made worse by overcrowding. There are so many people, all jammed on top of one another, that life has become cheap. We had a funeral for a neighbour a while ago, and driving behind the hearse to the cemetary was horrific. There were vans literally bibbing and trying to overtake. Just awful. Frankly, I think people are getting sick of one another. I live in the town my dad grew up in, and I have loads of old home movies from the 1980s (he was a keen amateur filmmaker). It's really striking just how quiet and empty the town seems compared to today. When people have space, and life moves at a slower pace, they tend to be calmer and more polite.

Someone who was driving around there at the time may have dashcam footage of the van. Might be worth asking on any local Facebook groups.

That is classified as assault, from what I remember dd's driving instructor telling her.

They really should do. Crimes against women often start with 'minor offences' and escalate. Look at Wayne Cousins. He felt he could get away with anything and there were many 'small' incidents which went uninvestigated for far too long.

There's obviously at least one aspect of what happened today aimed at a woman for simply being a woman. Would they have done this to another man?
Doubtful. I know they are overstretched but I think this kind of thing is exactly what needs clamping down on.

OP I hope there is CCTV. They need teaching a lesson.

What dickheads. I hope you'll be OK at home.
If you did find the name of the company or the reg.no then you could report them, but it's too late for that. There might have been CCTV, could you maybe contact the council?

I do agree with you to an extent, yet many people manage somehow to contain themselves and not abuse their fellow travellers in the street.

And to balance things out, even in cities like London, people would often kindly do things without being asked, like help me carry baby DS and pushchair up steps (DS now a strapping 14 year old who would give someone a hernia if they tried to carry him up stairs these days).