One truck driver is thankful he had his Byrna when he encountered a threatening driver on the road.
Ron said the incident started when he arrived at his destination towards the end of a shift.
“You’re only allowed to drive so many hours a day,” he explained. “I’m not allowed to drive my truck more than three miles per hour. Otherwise, it kind of clicks in with logging devices.”
He continued driving at a slow pace towards his dock, and another driver passed him.
“He came around me, which was fine. And he was probably in dock 40 and I had to go clear down the road to dock 100,” he explained. “As I was passing him, I was now inhibiting him from backing into the dock because I’m driving so slow. And I guess it really upset him.”
Ron said when he passed the driver, he began to yell profanities at him. So, he told the driver he can only go a certain speed and apologized.
“I don’t know if he didn’t understand what I said or just heard me yelling, but he immediately set his truck brakes and got out of the truck standing next to my door,” Ron said. “He was yelling at me, telling me he was, you know, wanting to beat me up, kick my butt.”
Ron was prepared to continue forward, paying no mind to the driver when he did the “unthinkable.”
“He reached out, he grabbed my door, and opened my door,” he said.
Unsure of what the driver was planning to do, Ron prepared for the worst.
“I have my gun (Byrna) mounted right above my head, and you know, it just instinct. Quick. I grabbed it, I got a surefire laser and flashlight on it with a strobe, and I lit him up. And he immediately threw his hands up in the air and started walking backwards to his truck,” he said.
“I lowered my Byrna down below the window of the door thinking, okay, it’s over.”
Ron said the driver exited his truck again, threatened to call the police, and said that he is “going to be in big trouble.” He said he wasn’t concerned about the driver calling the police but noticed something in the driver’s hand.
“He has something in his hand, and he said something to the point of, ‘Oh, you’re one of those guys with guns or you think you’re the only one with a gun,” he said, as he recalled focusing on the driver to see what object he was holding. “I was getting back to the ready and saw it was just a cell phone.”
Eventually, another person at the delivery facility heard the altercation and checked on what happened, with both drivers telling their side of the story.
“I went ahead, drove down and backed up to my doors and I thought to myself, ‘is this guy really going to be stupid enough to call the police after what he did?’”
Ron dialed 9-1-1 and asked if they received a call about a man with a gun. When dispatchers confirmed the call, he said, “I am the man with a ‘gun.’ However, I said, ‘it’s not a firearm and I told them what it was’ and they said the police are on their way.”
He said he placed his Byrna visibly in his truck and stepped out waiting for police to arrive. Ron said an officer asked what happened and looked at his Byrna.
“He tried to rack the slide. I told him, ‘No, no, it's not, it's not an actual firearm.’ I said it looks like it. But anyway, he looked at it. And he said, ‘oh, that's really cool. And this is all you have?’ And I said, ‘yeah.’ So basically, they didn't do anything with me,” he said.
Ron said the police spoke with the other driver and returned, asking if he wanted to press charges, which he declined.
“His family don’t need to suffer for something stupid that he did. And we all get mad out here as truck drivers. I’ve been out here for 30-some years,” he said. “I just figured out we’ll just let it go and hopefully, he’ll calm down and think of this in the future and won’t do it again.”
Ron, who is a military veteran, said he has been around guns his whole life, but would have been hesitant to use a real firearm in this situation.
“I don’t really know what I would have done if I didn’t have the Byrna. Having the Byrna, though, really gave me that peace of mind knowing that we’re both going to go home at the end of the day, he may not be feeling as good as I would be,” he said with a laugh.
“I know there are times that you need a real firearm, you know, but I think in most instances, you know, people just they’re not thinking, and they just do something stupid. So having the Byrna gave me the peace of mind that I can use it, not have to worry about going to jail, and not have to worry about actually taking a life.”
