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Tiff scratches the surface of road rage

A Pasco parking spat points to the problem of hot-headed motorists. Blowing your cool doesn't pay, authorities say. Just ask Alberta Peil.

By PHIL DAVIS
Published March 18, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - It's a hot February afternoon, and Alberta Peil's knees are hurting. The Sam's Club parking lot on U.S. 19 is a sea of gleaming metal. The 75-year-old great-grandmother circles and circles and, suddenly, there is it - reverse lights in a parking spot that's nice and close to the store.

She clicks on the blinker and waits.

The black Buick muscle car surprises her. It is beyond the available spot, and she is amazed and upset when the Buick's driver backs past the departing vehicle, edging in front of her so close their bumpers almost touch. She backs up a little.

Then the Buick slides into the empty spot - her spot - and the driver, she says, laughs and raises his middle finger.

"In Wisconsin, I believe that is illegal - an obscene gesture," recalled Peil, a snowbird who spends winters with her husband at their home in Holiday. "This fellow was being such a smart yardbird to begin with. That was just adding insult to injury.

"I guess I just lost my cool."

She does not notice the surveillance cameras.

John Davis, 58, doesn't get out much. When he goes, he takes his beloved 1987 Buick Grand National, a turbo-charged collector's car with a strong following among auto aficionados. He says he puts only a few hundred miles a year on the car driving to the store or to doctor appointments.

He realizes the car is scratched more than a month after his February trip to Sam's Club. More than an accidental ding, one of the scratches splits the paint on the passenger door right down to the metal. The damage: $250.

On Wednesday, he drove back over to Sam's Club to see if he could find out what happened.

A manager solves the mystery with a surveillance tape from Feb. 4, the day of the parking incident. A Pasco County Sheriff's deputy describes the scene: "On the video, I observed an elderly woman walking toward the victim's vehicle, stop at the passenger side door and make two motions with her hand as if she were scratching the passenger side door. Upon further review of the video, it appears the suspect was retaliating after John pulled into a parking space she wanted to park in."

Davis says he found the spot fair and square. He did overshoot it a little and backed up.

"It was right up front, and I got there first," Davis told the Times on Thursday. "I was just backing up to go in the parking place. I looked at her and she looked like she was mad, but I didn't think about giving no woman the bird.

"I didn't even see her until I was ready to pull in," he added. "I would have let her have it for all this trouble. That car is real nice looking, but if you put new paint on that door, it's obsolete. I want it all original."

A parking spot snit is not quite road rage, says Pasco County sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin.

But a recent rash of more serious roadway clashes were sparked by similar circumstances.

On March 1, an obscene gestured sparked an angry confrontation between two drivers. Robert D. Weiss, a 55-year-old West Point graduate, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless driving after police say he menaced a pregnant woman during a traffic dispute in downtown Tampa.

A few days earlier, a Tampa woman told police she was pursued and threatened on the road in Tampa by a man enraged by her Bush-Cheney bumper sticker. Nathan Alan Winkler, 31, of Hyde Park was charged with one count of aggravated stalking in the incident.

In December, a rolling altercation between two motorists ended in death when the driver of one vehicle smashed into a utility pole in Largo. Jacquelyn Palfy, 20, of Clearwater died at the scene. The driver of the other vehicle kept going.

Tobin advises motorists to stay calm, even in the face of the rudest behavior.

"I recommend people just take the path of least resistance," Tobin said. "It's just not worth the negative consequences. You'd think motorists would be courteous to each other in parking lots. But things do happen in parking lots and that's why there are surveillance cameras."

At first, Peil denied keying Davis' car. Then the deputy showed her the tape. The Sheriff's Office report said she then admitted she scratched the car with her keys and offered to pay for the repairs.

The deputy issued her a citation for criminal mischief. She will have to answer to the misdemeanor charge in court.

"It wasn't rage; I was just very angry. It was a stupid, stupid act on my part," Peil said Thursday. "It was a big mistake. I don't even think I can show my face it's so embarrassing."

[Last modified March 18, 2005, 00:43:17]