Did I not do enough?
 

Today I saw the craziest driver I've *ever* seen in my entire life driving
between Cypress, TX and The Woodlands, TX today (two exurbs of Houston)...

I'm on a very narrow 2-lane highway and this guy in an old Ford LTD kind of
cuts me off by turning right in front of me to go the same direction I'm
going -- he did one of those things where he approaches the intersection and
put his nose out where I would've clipped him had he not just gone ahead in
front of me... but in making his right turn, he swings WAY out into the
oncoming traffic lane RIGHT AT a guy on a motorcycle! The guy in the
motorcycle moves over and the Ford corrects to avoid the collision...
Thankfully no one's moving *too* fast because this is only a 45 MPH road,
but still, I'm thinking "What is this guy's deal..."

So now I'm following him, and he's ALL OVER the road... weaving back and
forth *into the ditch* and then overcorrecting *into the
oncoming traffic lane*. It's 1:30PM and the guy is either high, drunk, or
suicidal... I've never seen anything like this before folks, and I've seen
some crazy stuff... so I start pulling WAY back from this guy to give him
plenty of distance and immediately call 911... give the full description,
route of travel, etc.

As I'm on the phone with 911, he/she is continuing to drive like a
lunatic... slowing down to 25 MPH at points, then speeding up to 55 or so
at others... at one point, he is so far over into the oncoming lane that an
SUV headed our direction is forced into the ditch...

Still on the phone with dispatcher, we approach an intersecting highway
where I need to turn east and he's turning west, (busy 4-lane highway with
lots of stoplights in a commercial district) I told the dispatcher this and
never saw him again.

My only regret was not being able to continue following at a safe distance
to make sure he was nabbed by the cops. Should I have continued following
this car (way back of course) to keep the cops apprised of his location?

brink

Did I not do enough?
 

brink wrote:
> Today I saw the craziest driver I've *ever* seen in my entire life driving
> between Cypress, TX and The Woodlands, TX today (two exurbs of Houston)...
>
> I'm on a very narrow 2-lane highway and this guy in an old Ford LTD kind of
> cuts me off by turning right in front of me to go the same direction I'm
> going -- he did one of those things where he approaches the intersection and
> put his nose out where I would've clipped him had he not just gone ahead in
> front of me... but in making his right turn, he swings WAY out into the
> oncoming traffic lane RIGHT AT a guy on a motorcycle! The guy in the
> motorcycle moves over and the Ford corrects to avoid the collision...
> Thankfully no one's moving *too* fast because this is only a 45 MPH road,
> but still, I'm thinking "What is this guy's deal..."
>
> So now I'm following him, and he's ALL OVER the road... weaving back and
> forth *into the ditch* and then overcorrecting *into the
> oncoming traffic lane*. It's 1:30PM and the guy is either high, drunk, or
> suicidal... I've never seen anything like this before folks, and I've seen
> some crazy stuff... so I start pulling WAY back from this guy to give him
> plenty of distance and immediately call 911... give the full description,
> route of travel, etc.
>
> As I'm on the phone with 911, he/she is continuing to drive like a
> lunatic... slowing down to 25 MPH at points, then speeding up to 55 or so
> at others... at one point, he is so far over into the oncoming lane that an
> SUV headed our direction is forced into the ditch...
>
> Still on the phone with dispatcher, we approach an intersecting highway
> where I need to turn east and he's turning west, (busy 4-lane highway with
> lots of stoplights in a commercial district) I told the dispatcher this and
> never saw him again.
>
> My only regret was not being able to continue following at a safe distance
> to make sure he was nabbed by the cops. Should I have continued following
> this car (way back of course) to keep the cops apprised of his location?
>
> brink

You should have pulled over and stopped and then made your call.
Sounds to me like the guy you were observing was on a cell phone
himself.

Did I not do enough?
 

> brink:
> Still on the phone with dispatcher, we approach an intersecting highway
> where I need to turn east and he's turning west, (busy 4-lane highway with
> lots of stoplights in a commercial district) I told the dispatcher this and
> never saw him again.
>
> My only regret was not being able to continue following at a safe distance
> to make sure he was nabbed by the cops. Should I have continued following
> this car (way back of course) to keep the cops apprised of his location?

IMO, with the info you gave them, you should have given them enough
information to start looking for him. Ideally, you could have stuck with
the other car untill the cops got him, but you can't do all their work
for them. That assumes, of course, that the cops wanted to be bothered
with him to begin with and the dispatcher wasn't just taking the info
from you to humor you.