McCook Gazette

Editorial

More than one side to road rage story

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

It was a horrible story.

Tammy Meyers, a 44-year-old mother of four, was giving her 15-year-old daughter a driving lesson last week when they had an encounter with another driver.

One thing led to another and she wound up with a bullet wound to the head, dying on Valentine's Day when she was taken off life support.

But there was more to the story.

It turned out, the shooting came some time after the first encounter during the driving lesson.

Police say Ms. Meyers, scared and upset, went home, told her daughter to rouse her brother and have him come to the car with his registered firearm.

She then drove back out of the neighborhood in search of the other driver.

"The vehicles and persons found each other," Lt. Ray Steiber, a Las Vegas homicide detective said.

"Through the course of them finding each other, at one point Ms. Meyers was following what we consider a suspect vehicle and then at another point they broke apart and Ms. Meyers went home."

Back home, a gray or silver sedan pulled into their cul-de-sac and shots were exchanged between that car and the son, when his mother received the fatal wounds.

Certainly she didn't deserve to die, and the other driver deserves to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

But her lack of judgment certainly appears to have played a part in the tragic outcome.

Thankfully, road rage isn't a serious issue for Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas residents, and most of us aren't in danger of getting in a shootout with other commuters.

But that doesn't mean we are immune from losing our cool behind the wheel, and that we might not find ourselves in a road-rage incident here or somewhere else in our travels.

If you find yourself losing your temper, take a deep breath and count to 10 before doing anything you'll regret. If that doesn't work, count to 100 or 1000 until it does.