A maniac driver attacked a stranger's car with a baseball bat as they sped along a motorway. When the astonished victim pulled on to the hard shoulder, the maniac followed him and smashed every window in the car.
The amazing attack happened as sales director Russel Bayliss was driving his Volvo Estate along the M3 near its junction with the M25 southwest of London. Mr. Bayliss was in the fast lane when a Ford Transit van came up behind, flashing its lights. The van rammed the rear of the Volvo, then moved into the middle lane. The driver leaned out and hammered the Volvo with the baseball bat. When the vehicles stopped on the hard shoulder, 38 year-old Mr. Bayliss cowered inside his car as the van driver tried to demolish it.
After the motorway madman left, Mr. Bayliss sought help at a pub in Chobham, Surrey.
Landlord Larry Carty said yesterday: "When I saw the car, I could hardly believe it. Mr. Bayliss looked as if he had seen a ghost."
Mr. Bayliss, who lives near Alton, Hants, said last night: "It was terribly upsetting."
Transcribed from the Daily Mirror,; November 29, 1988
Highway tag the practice of running over small, furry creatures with oversized pickup trucks - has been a favorite pastime of good ol' boys in the South for as many years as there's been trucks. But this "hobby" has taken on a new (and dangerous) twist.
Environmental extremists and animal rights activists are fighting back for their four-footed friends of the forest armed with plastic explosives, contact detonators and fake fur, these "wascally wadicals" are setting traps for the unsuspecting drivers.
"I never seen nothin' like it," admitted Billy Joe "Bubba" Johnston. "I was drivin' along in my Chevy and saw this 'dillo in the middle of the road. Now, me and Betty Sue thought we'd have a little fun and swerve toward it. Next thing you know there's a huge BOOM and my front tires had been blown off!"
Reactions to this tactic among local politicians have been mixed, and the police are "looking into the matter."
Transcribed from the Lubbock Sentinel, September 22, 1989.