Member - Teabag (Queanbeyan) replied:

Beatit,

You make some very valid points and we all have different breaking points at various time depending on the pressures in your life at the time. Unfortunately some people out there are totally oblivious to what is happening around them am really don't care about anyone else besides themselves. I call this the Jack syndrome, "Stuff you Jack, bugger the rest of them, I'm O.K". These are the sort of people that do occasionally and for the right reason require a little, "Contact Counselling"......

Member - bushfix replied:

there's too much agro out there mate.

"I think it came within seconds of becoming a physical confrontation."

There are signs when someone is about to commence and assault. But things can get a bit too nasty a bit too fast. Knowing how to fight someone who does not know how to fight does not take much, knowing how to fight that small percentage who actually can takes a fair bit more. There are no rules in "saying G'day" in the street. Then, you may get into the legal side of things and you may lose a lot more than you thought possible, whether you won the scrap or not.

fine to let them know from your car (perhaps without words though) I guess but getting out and confronting them, well there are plenty of risks there and that may be considered to be more provocative than the taking of a car space.

yep, it's difficult but there's too many weirdo's and lawyers out there I reckon and it is probably good practice to remain "invisible" if you have the option, but you'd probably have to stand by your mate if a scrap started and he was struggling eh?

my initial thoughts anyway...:)

Footloose replied:

My breaking point is when it's life threatening.
Otherwise it's simply not worth the increase in blood pressure.

Truckster (Vic) replied:

breaking point - twice the strength of a shoelace.

Member - Willie , Epping .Syd. replied:

Hi Beatit ,

I am quite a mild person who avoids physical aggression and yet 30 years ago I had a parking pinched from me as I was backing into it . And like him , I jumped out of my car ( double parked in Hay St Sydney ) and proceeded to give the driver of the mini and his friend a glorious gobfull . The driver was enraged and leaped from his car throwing punches .

I was neatly dressed in a suit as a sales rep , we had the road to ourselves as traffic had halted in both directions - the stage was set for a magnificent spectacle .

As I backed away from his round arm swings I was jabbing away beautifully at his big nose . When this started to loose a bit of red sauce , he got even angrier , as he had not as yet landed a punch . The crowds were cheering , the dogs were barking , the horns were blaring - I was on fire .

Suddenly his passenger got out to come to his aid , I beat a retreat to my car and drove off to collect two small pebbles . I came back to cll on my customer and deposited one in each of two of his valves . I left to the sweet music of hissing air .

Now I am a person who has not come close to a fight in the past 30 years . I am not aggressive . This just shows how certain things can make you snap . I can well understand what happened to your mate Beatit .

Cheers ,

Willie .

Mr Fawlty replied:

OH God, I'll drag outy me soap box for this one....
Ask anyone with PTSD what their tolerance level is.... Go on ask!
Well at one time I had a tolerance level that was about -5, I could sniff out a nonthinking cretin at 50 yards and pounce....Now after several anger management courses I can contain the urge to some degree to smear moron & cretin all over the place. I still have a very low tolerance for PFT's, nonthinkers, morons, hoons, cretins & the like. I now resort to subtle methods of redressing wrongs done to me by these idiots. For instance and as a case in point I derive much satisfaction in taking pictures of cars parked inconsideratley or illegally and sending the said pics to the "Office of Parking Offences". I do this only to people who do stupid unthinking things like park diagonally across 2 places or who park in dissabled places without a permit.
When dealing with the deliberate, can I use the term "Beaureaucrat", who is detirmined not to see common sense it is always best to be pleasant I find. That way though one may not get immediate satisfaction one can sometimes usually gleen information that can be used for a major offensive attack. Never ceases to amaze me how many of these types think that if they can get away with something "at the counter" or "on the phone" that I will just give up & accept it... yeah hell will freeze over first or better still I'll get to mate with Jennifer Hawkins first....(I'd honestly prefer the latter) No, I can usually get a name & an address and that makes the process signifficantly easier...
Violence should always be the last resort, I've learnt it can be costly stamping on a moron's cell phone or throwing a rock thru a car window even giving a fool an earfull can land you in deep hot water........

Member - Phillip S (WA) replied:

I try to remember the situations where just with one punch, one of the people fell back and hit his head and is now dead today.........if only he instead just thought about it BEFORE he jumped out and started...then there would not be grieving family members today and senseless waste!!!!
The highway is full of impatient and unthinking people....prepare yourself each day(stick it up on your sun visor) to just take it easy, take your time and most of all, CUT everyone a bit of slack...you just might be pulling them out of their wrecked vehicle up the road ahead, for goes around, comes around.

Bonz (Vic) replied:

Well I think most things are bearable, but we all have a breaking point.

Story One: 5yr old daughter comes home telling u that the 15yo next door made her "bottom" hurt, many questions and pointing later - sexual abuse established -try that one

Story Two: 13 yo daughter's friend tells her Mum someones been follwing them home and "stalking" them from his car. Turns out she was not the only one this creep has stalked.

Story Three: 8 yo son comes hoem covered in mud head to toe. "Neighbour's son" got him to stand near a puddle and proceded to drench him in muddy water

There are more.

Simple qn what would u have done in any of the above? THE only time I snapped was with a jerk at work who was bullying in a corporate sense. I didnt lash out at him, simply came home and prayed that John Howard had tightened up the gun laws

Richard Kovac replied:

a piece of string [:-)

Ozdyssey (QLD) replied:

Interesting to think what different people would do in that situation in this day and age.

A lot of people seem ready to explode, just give them a reason and they'll take it all out on you. Probably the only thing stopping us all from complete kaos is that if you look the wrong way at someone these days you'll end up in court and we haven't got time for that have we? :)

Life has become too busy and too fast - an 'every man for himself' society it seems.
It's screw you, I gotta make a buck for me and my widescreen TV so this puts us all on edge ready to defend our little patch in a shrinking world.

6mths ago I was getting to the point where my tolerance level was almost non-existent. One day totally out of character I snapped and physically marched a bloke out of the shop and let off most of my well heated steam at his expense - he was an absolute PITA and I'd had enough of his crap which I'd put up with for years. It was a turning point and I started to ask what was the point to all this crap.

Being back in the big smoke for a xmas visit these last few weeks confirms the decision to quit the mainstream was not as crazy as we thought and we are not alone. When you hop off the merry-go-round it's hard to see a reason to get back on.

Only looking back now do I see how ridiculous and pointless it all was.

Is my time up....? OK off the couch.......

Bros 1 replied:

Beatit,
I reached my breaking point in November and cracked like an idiot.
I live over the road from a local gym and half of their car park is dirt. Combine dirt, high power cars (and low power) and pumped up young blokes and away you go.
Air borne dirt and dust is a problem in our city at the best of times, but when i saw this lad doing donuts and all the dust blowing over my place, i cracked and yelled out every form of abuse i know. Luckily for me he was only a weedy type and just looked the other way and bolted into the gym. I felt a bit silly after i had cooled down.
Maybe i should have walked over and explained to the lad nice and quietly what he was doing wrong.
Then again maybe i should have ran over with a piece of 3 x 2 and cracked him about the forehead.
Cheers,
Bros.