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Torpy: I-85 is fixed, so Atlanta drivers can fight even more often

Top left: Gerald Tisdale, 52, was shot and killed March 30 by a gunman who was believed to be riding in the black car, circled, on Stone Mountain Freeway. Lower left: John Armitage has been charged with shooting at another driver who failed to let him change lanes in Lilburn. Upper right: Shawn McLaughlin, 19, had a middle-age driver rush his car, urging him to fight. McLaughlin obliged and pinned the man down. Lower right: Kamyrah Parks is charged with whacking a vehicle — and one of its occupants — with a Dirt Devil vacuum. (AJC and WSB-TV photos)
Top left: Gerald Tisdale, 52, was shot and killed March 30 by a gunman who was believed to be riding in the black car, circled, on Stone Mountain Freeway. Lower left: John Armitage has been charged with shooting at another driver who failed to let him change lanes in Lilburn. Upper right: Shawn McLaughlin, 19, had a middle-age driver rush his car, urging him to fight. McLaughlin obliged and pinned the man down. Lower right: Kamyrah Parks is charged with whacking a vehicle — and one of its occupants — with a Dirt Devil vacuum. (AJC and WSB-TV photos)
By
May 25, 2017

Road rage is a metro Atlanta staple, and not just during the six weeks that the burned-down I-85 bridge was being repaired. Still, one might've hoped those vehicular frustrations would have subsided a bit once the bridge was fixed.

But no. Metro Atlanta drivers find plenty of excuses to get mad at each other.

The incidents veer all over the road, from highways to shopping mall parking lots. You cut me off. You tailgated me. You went too slow in the fast lane.

And weapons? Everything imaginable and some you'd never think of. (Consider the woman who was accused of going after her antagonist with the closest weapon at hand: a Dirt Devil vacuum.) They pit man against woman, young against old, black against white and every other conceivable "this one" vs. "that one."

They even lead to fatherless children.

About the Author

Bill Torpy, who writes about metro Atlanta for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joined the newspaper in 1990.

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