WHO HASN'T DONE THIS? Traffic is stalled, you can't break in. Then, as other cars start to move, one driver is slow to react. You pull in front of him.
So did Steven Lee Schultz, a 23-year-old Florida State University student, early one morning in Tallahassee six weeks ago.Until that minute, he was looking forward to receiving his criminology degree next spring and to eventually working out west, perhaps as a park or wildlife ranger.
There were shouts from angry young men in the other car. The driver jumped out, rushed up, stuck a gun through the open window and shot Schultz in the neck.
His future is now limited to fighting pain and to wondering whether he will ever move his fingers or toes again.
There were witnesses. Police have charged Vincent Kenon, also 23, with attempted first-degree murder and other crimes. Irony of ironies, he, too, was a criminology student, at nearby Florida A&M University. He had no criminal record.
"He should not be allowed out on the street as long as Steve can't walk or function as a normal human being," says Terry Schultz, a restaurant executive near Orlando and Steven's father.
A trivial traffic incident. A gun in the car. Two young lives ruined.
Wake up, America.
The social scientists call this phenomenon random violence. A better term for it is terror on the streets. It is real and it is getting worse.
The FBI, an agency not exactly known for hysterics, said this month that every American "now has a realistic chance" of becoming a murder victim.
We are so used to it that it was a one-day news story.
It is not that there are so many more murders than there used to be. The rate per population is actually lower than it was in 1980. But where the greatest danger used to come from loved ones, barroom buddies and other acquaintances, it is the stranger who is now most likely to kill you - often for no apparent reason. As a result, fewer murders are being solved. In 1965, 91 percent were cleared by arrest. In 1992, only 65 percent were.
According to "The Book of Risks," your lifetime risk of being murdered is 1 in 93, which is nearly as great as of dying in an auto accident (1 in 45) and nowhere near like that of dying in an airplane crash (1 in 4,000). Who needs flight insurance? Life insurance would be a better bet.
At a minimum, it should be as illegal to carry an unregistered gun in your car as in your pocket. The law now requires only that guns be secured - in a trunk, glove compartment, box or bag - and police should be running more roadblocks to check on that. Violators should go to the slammer, with no exceptions.
But of course the roots of the terror on our streets run much deeper. The popular culture extols violence and encourages instant gratification. There is a diminishing sense of right and wrong, of restraint and responsibility. Children are learning that dishonesty, cruelty and violence have no consequences.
Teachers and police were the first to see it, but the remedy is beyond them. It is plainly beyond such simplistic nostrums as prayer in schools.
The sources and the solution ARE IN THE HOME, where the first steps can be as simple as turning off the TV and giving the kids books instead of such evil junk as Mortal Kombat.
Visiting his son in the hospital one day, Terry Schultz saw a family with a little boy. The boy dropped a toy gun.
"I wanted to take that thing so bad and throw it in the trash can," he said.
Do it, parents. Do it.