How Highway Games Can Evolve into Road Rage and Put Your Family in Danger

A story of how a family road trip turned into the stuff of nightmares

We left the wedding early because we faced the long drive from California to Wisconsin. This time my friend Hines was the groom and I was the best man. It was a reversal from a decade earlier when we both lived in Peru.

I would have preferred to stay and drink and dance along with all the others, but we faced external demands on our time. The fact that we had been able to attend at all was something of a miracle.

We’d managed a leisurely drive on the way out, stopping to visit friends scattered about the country. The trip turned out to be exactly what I needed. I’d just sold my business and I felt like a rudderless ship.

The road trip provided a mental reset. But it had been exhausting, and I’d been trying not to think about the return journey. I knew it would be an all-night adventure, probably two nights.

We took one final picture in the photo booth, and loaded into the car. My wife still wore her wedding makeup, and our two daughters were young and precious in their fancy dresses. I might not have been in such a hurry if I’d known what awaited us in Arizona.

During the road trips of my youth, I always preferred to drive at night. There’s less traffic, and there’s something comforting about the darkness. It’s like being in a sensory deprivation chamber. For me, a cross-country drive is a form of extended meditation.

We’d come to California on highway 15 which runs through Las Vegas, but we’d encountered bad weather in Colorado. Wishing to avoid ice and snow, I elected to head towards Phoenix on the assumption that if I crossed the Rockies further South, it would be clear sailing.

California’s highways are notoriously crowded, but night had already fallen and traffic was light as we made our way into the desert. At first, everything went according to plan. We stopped for gas and the girls changed in the rest room. Back in the car, they made themselves comfortable.

It was after midnight and I was facing a long stretch of highway. The girls were sleeping, which is what I wanted. The longer they slept, the easier the hours would pass.

Up ahead, I noticed the tail lights of a vehicle that seemed to be driving erratically. At first I slowed, not wishing to get too close since the car couldn’t seem to stay in its lane. But the driver must have noticed my lights in his rear view, and he slowed too.

I maintained a distance of about twenty car lengths. When our speed got down to 30 mph, I decided it was as much of a risk to stay where I was as it would be to pass. So, I changed lanes and began to accelerate. The roar of the engine awoke my wife.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve got to pass this joker,” I said. “I think he be might drunk or something, he’s half off the road.”

As we got closer, I recognized that the car was a 1980s Lincoln Continental. It was one of those beasts that took up a lane and a half. The tail lights glowed ominously, but he was holding a line for the moment, and his speed was still low so I thought I could get around.

Everything was fine until we pulled up alongside him. I couldn’t see the driver, but I felt his energy. There was a sudden surge of rage. My wife called out, and the Lincoln swerved to hit us. Fortunately, we were going twice as fast, and we pulled away, though I was amazed my rear bumper hadn’t gotten clipped.

I watched nervously as his lights retreated in my rear view.

“What just happened?” my wife cried.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think he’s drunk.”

For the next few miles, I spent as much time glancing back as glancing forward. The lights of the Lincoln got smaller and smaller, and I began to relax.

But then, they started to grow. My wife had been monitoring the situation in the passenger mirror. She was wide awake now. “Here he comes!”

I turned off the cruise control and began to decelerate.

“What are you doing?”

“If we’re going to be in a crash,” I said. “I want it to be a low speed crash.”

“I don’t want to be in a crash at all!”

“Neither do I,” I replied. “But the speed is the only thing I can control.”

There were a few tense moments as we looked in our respective mirrors and watched the headlights grow and grow. I stayed in the right lane, ready to swerve off the road if I needed. At the last instant, the Lincoln changed lanes and roared by.

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and watched as the red tail lights pulled away. The red lights were even more ominous than the yellow of the headlights.

“Maybe he doesn’t like getting passed,” I said. “Fine, I hope he gets far away, maybe far enough to be pulled over.”

But the red tail lights never went out of sight. After a while, I realized that they were once again growing in size. The driver was slowing down.

“What is going on?” my wife said with a hint of panic in her voice. We were tired. We felt vulnerable, and the kids were in the car. We weren’t interested in playing highway games with some lunatic in the middle of the Arizona desert.

I had no intention of getting near that driver again, so I took the next off-ramp. I pulled off to the side and shut off my lights.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to give that guy some space to cool down,” I said. “With any luck, he’ll get far enough up the road that we won’t see him again.”

“Why is he after us? Do you think he saw the girls in the back? Is he trying to get them?”

“I don’t think he could have seen them, it’s too dark,” I said. But I was scared and uncertain.

We waited on the off ramp for about fifteen minutes, and I was pleased to see that a couple of other cars went by. I thought they would provide us with cover. It was night, and I hoped the guy in the Lincoln couldn’t distinguish us from the other cars out on the road.

I turned the lights on and merged back onto the highway. We drove for about half an hour. I got behind a semi. I’d just started to feel like the ordeal might be over when my wife called out, “There he is!”

The moment she said it, the car went flying by. The Lincoln had been parked on the side of the road, waiting. We passed at full speed, tucked in behind the semi. I watched in my rear view mirror. At first nothing happened, then the headlights came on.

“No, we’re not doing this again,” I said.

I accelerated passed the semi, got in front, then took the next off ramp. We were close to Phoenix now, so I knew I could take a different route. It was still dark, so I didn’t think our pursuer had seen what we did.

The GPS provided guidance, and we changed highways a few times. Adrenaline kept me going, and for a few hours there was no sign of our strange pursuer. I needed gas, so I pulled into a station.

The stress of the experience had taken its toll and I started to crash. “I’m going to have to close my eyes for ten minutes,” I said.

“What? We have to keep going.”

“I want to keep going,” I replied. “But it’s not safe for me to drive like this. Do you want to drive?”

“No!”

“Then let me sleep. I just need 10 minutes.”

I pulled into a parking place, and shut my eyes. My wife stayed awake, keeping watch. Ten minutes later, I woke up.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” my wife said, tight lipped. “Let’s go.”

Her response seemed strange, but I did as she requested. We got back on the highway. Daylight was approaching and the world didn’t seem quite so dangerous. After a few hours, I felt my wife relax.

“A car pulled up beside us while you were asleep,” she said. “I thought it was him, but it must not have been.”

“It must not have been,” I agreed, though even I recognized my attempt at reassurance fell flat. At that point, it felt like everyone on the road was out to get us.

Strange things can happen on American highways. We completed our return trip to Wisconsin without further incident. To this day, my wife doesn’t like to talk about that long, strange night in Arizona. Maybe the driver was just a drunk playing games, or maybe it was something more sinister.

I guess I’ll never know.

In all my years as a husband and parent, I’ve rarely felt so vulnerable.

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