Very odd "Road Rage" - ScanGauge knows what other drivers are thinking

If your dashboard is covered with Scangauges, tyre pressure displays, a HSI, GPS, iPhone or other music device, you may be inadvertently tapping into paranoid delusions of others.

You may have seen the extraordinary dashcam video of a road rage incident in Queensland, Australia on YouTube recently. My story is nowhere near as scary... more like odd.

Today started odd and got odder.
12 volt battery was dead and was resurrected by the roadside assistance man. My wife had to take the bus to work, but I had to charge the battery. Oh well, I'll have to take a long drive then before I pick up my wife from work. Drove to a bicycle shop for some bits and then took a high-speed 100km/h loop and then my "eco route" through Canberra (to avoid hills).

Soon I noticed that the white 4x4 ute (pick-up truck) was the same one I noticed looking into my car from about 2km from my house. So why was he still behind me? No-one in their right mind would take the exact same route as me nor at the pace I take it. There's plenty of multi-lane road and opportunity to overtake, lots of hills I struggle up... so what was going on?
I even tried a counter-surveillance move to turn right at traffic lights, but he followed me into the turning lane. He was definitely following me.
I stopped outside the Police Station near my house next to their car park.

White Ute Man (WUM) stopped next to my window and asked, "Why are you following me?" "Why are you tracking me with all of those things on your dashboard?" and "Who do you work for?" Contents of my dashboard:

• Scangauge-e
• Garmin GPS with ecoroute HD
• iPhone in a cradle

Since he seemed non-violent (lucky guess), no-one in Australia carries a gun and I was outside a Police Station, I asked if he wanted me to explain what the gadgets really did. Instead of parking in the space behind me, he drove much further up the street to park. I stayed near my car until he was close enough to be met by my hand outstretched to introduce myself.
Pretty soon it was even more obvious that he was mentally ill. You couldn't tell by looking; he was fit and clean, but he was convinced that I had followed him. As evidence, he pointed out that:

• The wrong turn that I took to avoid road work, was a manoeuvre to follow him;
• The 30 minutes I was in the Bike Shop, was when I at the local newspaper office to report on him;
• My electronics, that any self-respecting PCer would own were a Chinese iPhone [sic] and devices designed to track him, and;
• No-one has wires and gadgets in their car and everything that I demonstrated to him was BS.

Would you believe that after taking the time to explain the features of the 2010 Prius, Scangauge-e (I even read the instruction manual to him, but it was too much), Garmin ecoroute HD and the iPhone (I had to explain what a "podcast" was), he was not only unconvinced, he said that he was bored.
I asked if you was going through a stressful time and if people often followed him. Well, that was pointless question as his self-awareness wasn't present or working.
Then he seems to get sinister (wasn't that 80km ago?). While he was not interested, he said that he had a friend that would be interested in looking at my car.

I spoke to him for 30 minutes (yeah, I know) until I just had to go. He was still convinced that his following me for 80km (50 miles) and waiting for 30 minutes in the middle of that constituted my following him.

I could have walked into the Police Station and should have, but I wanted to leave the scene before he could get followed in front by me again. I got home, closed the garage door and dialled 131444 (the equivalent of 311?) and explained the situation to a trained operator. Again, the recent road rage incident in Queensland is fresh in people's mind.

The lovely Robyn made some enquiries and called back 30 minutes later. She said that a trained professional in the mental health sector would pay WUM a visit. She said that his "threats" could be ignored, but that if it ever happened again I was to walk straight into the Police Station without engaging WUM where other trained professionals would be waiting.

(For the record, my long loop including 100km/h stretches was at 3.4l/100km; 83mpg(Imp); 69.5mpg(US; 29.4km/l. I bet WUM recorded far worse than that.

I really hope that he gets help. You do not want this man doing electrical work in your house if he believes that Prius drivers all work for secret Government spy agencies. So he might thank me one day for following him... from in front.

 

Thanks for the comments and votes.
I'm reminded of a couple of occasions when I've had to work around someone else's warped view of the world. The incident above isn't the scariest.
1.
As a student I lived in a shared house in Newcastle, Australia. One day an acquaintance walked straight into the lounge-room where 3 of us were sitting. He was terrified of something, you could see desperation in his face. He walked to me and asked me repeatedly, "What have you done?" as he stared with a look of horror in his face.
A mixture of pop Dale Carnegie and pop Buddhism took over and I calmly repeated to him, "It's going to be all right."
I walked him back to the front door and he walked away.
Next day he tried to get into the now locked security screen door and walked away after hitting the screen with an empty plastic milk bottle.
A week later he came up to me in the pub and apologised. He said that he had no recollection, but a friend had told him what he had done. He promised to not stop taking his medication again, even if sometimes the side effects made him feel yukky.

2.
Flying back from Japan I was in my usual exit row with my wife. This exit was a wide walkway with jump seat on the other side of the flight attendants, so there was plenty of legroom.
Being a JAL flight, we had finished off the hot towels and a beer and were onto our second within minutes of the seatbelt sign turning off. I settled to watch the TV, listening through my fancy headphones.
The man behind me started bumping the back of my seat like a 3 year-old. After he tapped me on my shoulder and my head, I turned to him and he asked me to turn the volume down. I replied that the volume knob was on the armrest.
He repeated the question. I got up and noticed that he didn't have headphones plugged in. There were 2 of Rolls-Royce's finest just metres away outside, but the sound he was concerned about came from the silent TV above the exit row bulkhead.
About 10 minutes later he leapt up from his window seat, walked over the ladies next to him and walked towards the exit door, his hands touching the door handle as he muttered "turn the volume down".
[And this is why you listen to the safety briefing] quick as a flash I released my seat belt and got between him and the door and in no uncertain terms told him to move back.
[The sharp intake of breath from the passengers in economy was enough to upset to A/C.]
Oddly the staff were from Thailand and were even more petite then usual. It was so bizarre that everyone was non-plussed.
The Senior Flight Attendant quickly arrived and wanted to what had happened. She informed me that the Captain was considering turning around - there's not much to land on between Japan and Australia - and was awaiting her advice. I gave my story.
It was quite a scene; the two passengers seated beside him were now standing and covered in wine and nibbles. Several flight attendants helping. Mr Volume was (I @#$%ing kid you not) asleep in his seat.
This was 2006, so airline security was monstrous and the penalties for even a prank were draconian. In that context, she issued a warning notice to the man, while I listened in from the next row. He responded by telling her that he had to be in London the next day waiting for a phone call from his friend in Brisbane about a job. When she explained that he would be in Brisbane in about 5 hours, he repeated his need to be in London, etc.
When she returned to me to ask more details I asked her if she thought that his responses were odd. I said that most people would be begging not to be arrested and promising to be good. I told her that in my opinion he was hallucinating and he didn't understand the situation at all. The warning notice meant nothing and he could do something just as bizarre again.
Security arrangements were made: A flight attendant sat opposite me at all times keeping an eye on the passenger. My wife and I would spend the rest of the overnight flight awake; not because we were asked to, but because we had no intention of sleeping. My Volume slept like a baby.
Arrival to transit in Brisbane was interesting. Some trained professionals escorted Mr Volume from the plane for a chat.
As we waited in transit I was paged by the Australian Protective Services officer. He asked if I would give evidence and I said yes. He told me that Mr Volume had been drinking since London, drank some more at Kansai and took some Valium before he got on the plane to take the edge off. No charges were being pressed at that time, however if he behaved badly on his return flight, he would have to answer to the lot.
Then the Manager of JAL in Brisbane spoke to us. Actually, he spoke to my wife since he didn't speak English. He even walked onto the plane with us until the plane was to depart.
And only two more flights to go. I looked around me. Most of the passengers had departed at Brisbane while a new lot got on.
A week later I received a letter from JAL thanking me for my assistance, understanding and tolerance in a difficult in-flight situation. That was all the thanks I needed, though a refund of $500, the first time we have ever been charged excess baggage, would have been nice.

Science Warning: I'm not sure that an exit door can be opened easily at altitude. There are procedures to open the tail doors to remove cabin smoke, so it is possible but perhaps only under controlled conditions. He touched the door with his hands at either end of the door handle, so he couldn't have turned the handle and I don't think that he intending to open the door. But I wasn't going to sit there and speculate, was I.