When Your Kids Are In The Car You’ve Lost The Right To Road Rage
I am not going to lie to you all and say that I never get annoyed behind the wheel and experience a little road rage while my kids are in the backseat. They both know that sometimes Mommy will call someone “stupid” if they cut me off and I have used my horn before to express my displeasure at the behavior of another motorist. I have never been proud of it and I try my best to corral my emotions when I have the kids in the car with me. However, not all moms feel that way as evidenced by this amazing video taken by a man who was accosted by Hawaii mom Kimberly Ong after cutting her off in traffic. Driver Ryan Arakaki acknowledges that he knows filming behind the wheel is illegal but felt he should document what was going on as this minivan mom is obviously off her nut. The video is from The Raw Story courtesy of Ryan Arakaki:
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Wow. After watching that, I do not feel a single ounce of guilt for my behavior while driving with my children. Seeing her poor kid in the front seat witnessing his mother completely losing her shit and also, obviously, putting him in real danger made me cringe. Not to mention, Ong had no idea what kind of person Arakaki is and whether he carries a gun in his car or has violent tendencies- leaving her vehicle to scream and yell at him was certainly not a great idea. In my opinion, it is best to avoid confrontation with a complete stranger on the road while your children are with you because you never know what you could be getting yourself into.
If she were on her own, I might have cheered her on because getting cut off and being put into danger by another driver is infuriating but in my opinion, she loses the right to that kind of confrontation when she has her child in the car and needs to consider his safety as well. I am not going to go all Sanctimommy about the swearing– obviously, she went way overboard but I think most of us have uttered some choice words in front of our kids at some point in the heat of the moment. I still definitely take issue with Ong’s cavalier attitude about her son’s safety in this situation.
As far as what Ong had to say about it, she claims that the incident was Arakaki’s fault and that her son agrees:
”Even my son said, ”˜the guy started it.’ My son was also upset, we were both in shock that he tried to reverse and crash us.”
”I was super, super angry,” she told KITV. ”I really was angry. And, of course, he was taunting me somewhat. So, that obviously made me even more angry. I’m not the most happy about it. But, I could have probably chose some better words to use. I was upset and it’s apparent. I don’t totally 100 percent regret it.”
Even removed from the situation, she still seems to think she was in the right. To me, that is very telling- this woman seems to think her level of anger and how she handled this situation is normal. This makes me sad and worried for her child. Maybe instead of nosy busy-bodies calling CPS on a mom who lets her children play outside, they should be calling on a mom who leaves her child alone in a car so she can go off on a complete stranger in the middle of traffic. I would hope that after more time to process the situation that Ong would agree her behavior is worthy of condemnation and not at all normal.
(Image: Sergey Peterman/Shutterstock)
