A road rage encounter in Albuquerque has racked up tens of millions of views after a bystander caught the entire thing on video, and it escalated from a shouting match to a baseball bat and a car-on-car collision in a matter of seconds. Police are now trying to track down both drivers.
The confrontation happened Tuesday morning at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Wyoming Boulevard in Albuquerque, according to KRQE. A man who witnessed the incident pulled out his phone once tensions started boiling over, and the resulting clip has since spread across TikTok and other platforms.
The video shows a woman in a burgundy SUV smashing the back window of a white pickup truck with a bat, then getting back in her car and starting to drive off. What happens next is why the video went viral in the first place.
It’s the kind of clip that splits a comment section right down the middle, and this one is no exception. Viewers can’t agree on who is at fault, but they can agree that the truck driver’s reaction turned this into something else entirely.
The Truck Driver Had To Make a Choice
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According to the witness who filmed the incident, the confrontation didn’t start with the bat. He told KRQE the truck driver had been verbally confrontational, slamming on his brakes in an apparent attempt to get the woman to hit him. Then he allegedly said something that pushed her over the edge.
That’s when she got out and broke his back window with the bat.
The truck driver sat still for a moment after she got back in her vehicle, then followed her into the intersection and rammed the back of her car.
Who are the Drivers?
The Albuquerque Police Department confirmed it’s investigating the incident and is working to identify both the woman with the bat and the man driving the truck. As of Thursday morning, no official police report had been filed, and no charges had been announced.
It’s not clear yet whether either driver will face consequences or whether one of them might come forward on their own given how far the video has traveled.
The Witness Says Filming It Backfired
The man who filmed the confrontation didn’t want to be identified, and it’s easy to see why. He told KRQE that after the video blew up, he started receiving threats online, with people reportedly reaching out to his personal friends and causing problems in his life.
He said the backlash has gotten bad enough that he’s considered deleting his social media entirely, despite having done nothing more than record what happened in front of him.
The Comments Have Their Own Side
The pause before the truck driver hit the gas is what really got people talking. One top comment simply asked who else was “on grandpa’s side,” while another joked he looked like he counted to 10 and decided to hit the gas anyway.
Plenty of others ran with the idea that he weighed his options before ramming her car. One commenter guessed he paused just long enough to text his wife that he was going to jail that day, while another said it’s always the calm ones you have to watch out for.
Not everyone was picking sides for laughs, though. Some commenters used the clip as a reminder of how pointless road rage really is, since neither driver walked away from the exchange looking good.
Whether either driver ends up facing charges is still unknown, as the case is still being investigated.