A US Navy Veteran fell victim to a violent road rage incident in Florida after his motorcycle was run off the road, resulting in a broken leg and an injured passenger.
In an incident that was caught on film, the veteran -identified as Joe Calderazzo- and his passenger were injured during a Memorial Day ride after an altercation with reckless driver 31-year-old Robert Vance, who nearly clipped Calderazzo’s riding partner.
As the riders and car approached the stoplight, Calderazzo confronted Vance.
“He was already yelling and screaming, [so] we started yelling and screaming,” Calderazzo said.
According to Fox13, Vance’s verbal aggression quickly evolved into physical violence when he used his car as a weapon against Calderazzo.
“All of a sudden, he backed up, turned the wheels towards my bike, so I didn’t really have very much time to react,” Calderazzo said. “I went to go get out of the way and he just drove right over us.”
Fortunately for Calderazzo, eyewitness Abe Garcia caught the entire incident on film.
“I wanted to videotape it, just in case, then things kind of went from zero to 100 very quickly,” Garcia said. “One thing led to another and the next thing you know, this guy is trying to kill them, trying to run them over.”
Later on, Garcia would show Calderazzo just how lucky he and his passenger were.
“He’s like, ‘I don’t know if you saw what this looks like,'” Calderazzo explained. “He had it on his phone and, at that moment, I was like, ‘wow, we are lucky to be alive. We really are.'”
Although Calderazzo broke his leg and his passengers sustained minor injuries, there were no fatalities as a result of the deadly encounter.
Witnesses followed Vance as he fled, notifying law enforcement in the process. Eventually, law enforcement tracked him down at his home, where the found a shredded tire in the trunk of his car and a spare tire on the wheel.
The Florida Highway patrol charged the 31-year-old with aggravated battery, two counts of attempted murder, leaving the scene of a crash with injury and driving on a suspended license. His vehicle has been seized by law enforcement and his bond is now set at $115,000.
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