A Tesla driver appears to be at the centre of a growing list of road rage incidents in southern California.
Several people have spoken to the press about their experience of being attacked by seemingly the same man in a dark car with no license plates, or plates that have been covered.
A woman recently told KABC that she had been attacked by the man in June while she was with her 93-year-old mother.
“The Tesla was coming into oncoming traffic,” the woman, who remained unidentified, told the local TV station. “We confronted each other, and I said to him, ‘You can make it, just keep coming slow.’ And immediately, he went into some kind of psycho mode and starts screaming and motioning.”
She said he left his car, threw a can at them and then got back in his Tesla. She added that a valet tried to calm him down only to be punched in the face.
“Boom! He just smashes him in the face,” she told KABC.
Surveillance footage shows that the man threw something at the valet worker.
“I take out my phone, I start snapping a couple of pictures. I’m trying to back out. They get into it,” the woman said.
The man appears enraged before he leaves in his car. According to KABC, there have been 10 altercations involving the Telsa driver.
Victims claim that they were harassed and at times chased by an individual in a dark Tesla, with the most recent incident being reported as happening on Wednesday.
“I honestly did feel like he was either gonna break my windows or pull me out,” one victim told the local TV station.
Another woman told the outlet that she received a black eye in October 2021 when she was attacked by that same man in a parking lot at the Santa Anita Mall in Arcadia. She alleged that he shouted at her and damaged her vehicle before striking her.
Wednesday’s alleged attack took place at around 8am on the 2 Freeway in Glendale when the man jumps out of his car, which doesn’t have a license plate, dressed in a green t-shirt and wearing a mask.
The footage shows him getting out of the car and bashing the vehicle behind him.
“Initially you think, ‘Should I pin him to the wall with my car?’ ‘Should I run him down?’ ‘What should I do?’” the victim told KTLA. “And I tried to stay focused and think, ‘I don’t want to go from victim to criminal in an instant.’”
The victim said he started filming after seeing the Tesla driver attack another car that same morning, pursuing a white sedan onto an exit, trying to get out and hitting the car before it drives off.
The driver of the car told KABC that she had honked at the Tesla driver because he had been taking a long time to merge.
“I honestly did feel like he was either gonna break my windows or pull me out,” she told the outlet.
In a video recorded by one of the victims, the man tells her “you better go outside Cali where you came from”.
“You don’t even know where I’m from,” she responds. “I’m born and raised in LA.”
Each of the victims has reported the incidents to the police, and an investigation has been started by the California Highway Patrol, according to the New York Post.
