So yesterday I was travelling down to my mums, a 2 hour 20 minute drive and it was my first time driving long distance on the motorway.I’ve been driving for a long time but my husband has always drove on long journeys so this incident has made it even worse that it happened now. I had my 3 young children in the car aged 10,8 and 2 years old. I was proud of myself because I’d done so well, was around 30 minutes from my mums on a bypass which has a speed of 60mph. There is a set of traffic lights where you can turn into a Tesco supermarket and then the bypass continues and speed is 60mph. I was behind this particular car for a good 10 minutes, I have since re looked at all the dash cam footage from my car and he was driving very fast round roundabouts etc and a car that was in front of me and behind him kept braking before going into the other lane and over taking this driver.
I pulled up behind this car as the light on the bypass was red, the lights changed, all the cars started to move off and on this bypass everyone pulls of quickly. This car pulled of quickly, all the other cars in front of him had gone, I’d also started moving, next thing I know he’s braked hard ( for no reason as all the other cars in front had gone and lights were on green) I tried to brake in time but I bumped into the back of him. He immediately pulled over to the side as did I. He had a dent in the back of his bumper and the front radiator grill of my car has half come off ( my car is worse) but I’ve had the car checked and it’s thankfully just cosmetic and won’t cost to much to repair.
I do have bad anxiety but I was calm with this older man, maybe late early to mid 60s. He was very cold, kept giving me intimating stares, we took pictures of each others cars and swapped phone numbers, at this point I was on the phone to my husband and my husband asked what had happened and I told him “ we’ve bumped into each other” this male started getting aggressive saying “ we didn’t bump into each other she hit into me”. We had exchanged numbers, details, took each others registrations and I told him I was leaving. At this point he told me “ you are not running away from this” ( if I was running away from this I would have surely drove off not stopped and exchanged my details and let him take pictures of my car???!) and he went on to tell me “ you are not leaving” my husband told me to get into my car and this man told me “ I’m calling the police your not running away from this” I burst into tears even though I knew I’d done everything I needed to and wasn’t wrong for wanting to leave, my oldest was crying in the car and the kids were in shock so I obviously needed to check my children were ok and get them to my mums to calm them down.
I could see him on his phone calling the police and this male came and stood next to my passenger window and was staring at me through the window trying to scare and intimidate me. I called the police who reassured me as I’d done everything I needed to I was allowed to leave and I also told them this male was scaring me and being aggressive and telling me I’m not leaving or running away from this.
this male kept texting me on my number and I sent one message saying I’m on the phone to the police who have told me I am allowed to leave as I’ve done what I needed to and he was scaring me and my children and acting inappropriately. He then sent me another text message saying “ your not leaving” I then blocked his number and drove off scared he would start following me, he didn’t luckily and I made it to my mums.
this whole Incident has really shaken me up, I’m scared what is going to happen next. I’ve never been in an accident and from what I’ve read even though I have dash cam footage and he braked for no reason it will be my fault. I just am so anxious and scared and can’t believe this has happened and how he treated me and was trying to intimidate me!