QCOSTARICA – The images filled the morning news television screen, for no apparent reason, the driver of a big rig begins to beat with his fists the driver of a small sedan.
The incident occurred Monday afternoon on the Autopista General Cañas highway, as vehicles were stuck in the daily congestion caused by construction in the area of the Firestone plant.
Speaking to the press, Luis Diego Cordero, the assaulted driver, said he does not know what caused the violent reaction from the truck driver.
“I do not know what happened. I just know that he came to my car door and hit me. I don’t know who he is, another man told me that he was driving a red truck, but I didn’t see when he got out, or anything.
“He wouldn’t stop hitting me and I said ‘please, that’s it, what happened?’ And he didn’t say anything to me, he was just hitting me,” said the victim, a resident of Naranjo.
This 46-year-old family man says he was driving back from work before the altercation happened. Furthermore, he claims that, out of fear, he did not try to call the Traffic Police.
For his part, the trucker, identified by his las name Sánchez, until the incident an employee of the Transporte Internacional GASH S. A. truck company, acknowledged that he is responsible for the attack and accepted that his reaction could cost him his job.
“I was coming from Cenada to Real Cariari and there was a red light. There is a trailer in front of me, so I’m already crossed in the lane and he started pulling the car at me to the right.
“So, so as not to hit him or anything, I let him pass, but he stopped and then he started pulling giving me the finger. Then further ahead he started to drive into me and that’s where I got angry.
“I got out and told him what was wrong with him, why was he trying to hit me (with his car) and then he started to tell me that ‘calm down’, but for what,” said Sánchez, who is a resident of Tres Ríos and had eight years as a truck driver at GASH.
“I have a son, I pay a pension and I help my mother because I live with her. It is certain that I have already lost my job, but they are mistakes that one makes in life,” he said.
Sanchez, besides losing his job, may face criminal charges following Delgado’s complaint filed on Tuesday with the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ).
The truck driver confessed that he is ashamed of the video circulating on social networks and that he could ask Luis Diego Cordero for an apology, but that he also wants an apology from him.
“I could apologize to him, but he would also have to apologize. Because I am very manly, I am honest: if I make a mistake, I apologize, but forgiveness only from God. He also has to apologize, if we are men. I would do it because the truth is that it does not take away my manhood,” said Sanchez.
This Monday, the Director of the Policia de Transito (Traffic Police), Germán Marín, regretted the violent events and recommended learning to control irritability at the wheel or road rage, to avoid situations such as Monday’s.
