Yesterday, between 4:30 and 5:00 PM, we went to pick up a friend arriving at the airport in Puerto Plata. There were four of us in the car, two in the front and two in the back.
As we were about to leave the airport road and turn left onto the main
highway to head east, there was one vehicle in front of us stopped. The driver was talking to a guy on a motorbike. I waited a few seconds and beeped the horn. The car moved on, but the motorbike driver who had been talking to the driver of the vehicle turned in front of me and blocked my way deliberately.
Within a few seconds there were about 7 people on each side of the car on
various scooters/passolas and motos. One guy was pounding on my drivers door and was yelling at me to stop in Spanish.. I made believe I was going to roll down the window, while I went for my 9mm. I had no intention of actually rolling it down for obvious reasons.
Then for some reason the guy in front on the moto got out of my way and I hightailed it out of there. I don't think they saw me go for the gun, because the windows are smoked on the sides and back and even the moto in front of me didn't have an angle to see what I was doing quite yet. If he had not gotten out of the way, my only alternative would have been to run him over.
It could have gotten very ugly in just another second or two. I can only
assume this was an attempted carjacking.
I have no idea why the delinquent in front of me moved out of the way. Perhaps it was because another car came up from behind me and they didn't want additional witnesses. Nobody else in our group could explain why we "got away" in the nick of time.
Be careful out there.
As we were about to leave the airport road and turn left onto the main
highway to head east, there was one vehicle in front of us stopped. The driver was talking to a guy on a motorbike. I waited a few seconds and beeped the horn. The car moved on, but the motorbike driver who had been talking to the driver of the vehicle turned in front of me and blocked my way deliberately.
Within a few seconds there were about 7 people on each side of the car on
various scooters/passolas and motos. One guy was pounding on my drivers door and was yelling at me to stop in Spanish.. I made believe I was going to roll down the window, while I went for my 9mm. I had no intention of actually rolling it down for obvious reasons.
Then for some reason the guy in front on the moto got out of my way and I hightailed it out of there. I don't think they saw me go for the gun, because the windows are smoked on the sides and back and even the moto in front of me didn't have an angle to see what I was doing quite yet. If he had not gotten out of the way, my only alternative would have been to run him over.
It could have gotten very ugly in just another second or two. I can only
assume this was an attempted carjacking.
I have no idea why the delinquent in front of me moved out of the way. Perhaps it was because another car came up from behind me and they didn't want additional witnesses. Nobody else in our group could explain why we "got away" in the nick of time.
Be careful out there.