Road rage out of control in Geelong, leaving victims baffled

Kevin Lodge still isn’t sure why a furious tradie chased him through traffic, cut him off, wrench his car door open and repeatedly punch him. His warning to motorists: “You don’t know what kind of idiots are out there”.

Kevin Lodge still isn’t entirely sure why a furious tradie decided to chase him through traffic, cut him off, wrench his car door open and repeatedly punch him in the head and body.

He’s had half a year to think about why he – a 74-year-old grandfather with a heart condition, dodgy knee and bad back – was left bruised and bleeding on the side of Centaurus Ave in Clifton Springs back in June, but he’s still unsure.

“When I think about it, as much as I can, I really can’t put my finger on exactly what it was that I did that annoyed him,” Kevin declares down the phone line, as he bluntly discusses his experience with the baffling violence of road rage.

It takes a lot of anger to attack a septuagenarian with such hatred, and even more so to do it after spending almost a quarter of an hour furiously following them through traffic.

74-year-old Kevin Lodge was attacked by a tradie in a violent June road rage attack just around the corner from his house. Picture: Alan Barber

“How he managed to maintain the rage all of that time, for 12 minutes while he followed me down into Clifton Springs and down the St Georges Rd, I have no idea,” Kevin says.

“I couldn’t maintain that kind of rage for more than 30 seconds.”

Frustration is a common catalyst for road rage, and Kevin suspects the violent reaction he fell victim to was sparked somewhere near the roadworks at the Hermsley Rd intersection with Portarlington Rd on the way to Drysdale, where traffic was squeezed to a single lane.

Kevin had taken his time to merge into the queue of cars, and being frustrated by those jumping ahead of backed up traffic he decided to hold his place in the right lane as he approached the merger point.

He didn’t notice the white ute at this point, but suspects this was most likely where the frustration of his attacker was sparked.

Kevin Lodge after the attack. Picture: Mark Wilson

“After I got past the roadworks and back into the 80km/h zone, he pulled up alongside me and was scowling at me and yelling at me,” Kevin said, with the enraged tradie “aggressively” cutting Kevin off and slowing to well under the speed limit before moving behind Kevin and following him.

“I thought ‘I’m not going to take him home’, so I figured I’d go round and stop in front of the milk bar because there would be people there,” Kevin said.

“However he must have understood that, because as soon as I turned left into Centaurus Ave he overtook me on the right and cut me off and screeched to a stop. Then he hopped out of his car and came rushing around and bashed on my window.

“He just wrenched the door open and started punching. As soon as he started punching me he said ‘you do that again ya bastard and I’ll kill ya’.”

Kevin remembers being punched about seven times, resulting in a decent cut above his eye and bruising to his face and ribs.

It was the kind of attack which could easily produce ongoing trauma for many people, but Kevin is fortunate to have escaped the assault without permanent mental or physical injuries.

One of the only lasting impacts the attack had on Kevin is the lesson it taught him about road rage – a lesson he hopes to share with road users ahead of what may be a frustratingly busy holiday period on Geelong’s roads.

“Just always be aware that there are people out there that you have no idea what’s going on inside their head,” he said.

“Be careful, drive the best you can and remain alert 100 per cent of the time.”

“Driving is one of those things where you just need to be doing the best you can and being as courteous as you can.

“You don’t know what kind of idiots are out there.”

Originally published as Road rage out of control in Geelong, leaving victims baffled