We’re not used to hearing stories about meteorologists, certainly not ones that involve death threats and sucker punches, but it’s been a trying couple of weeks for forecasters at CBS especially. In mid June, Chris Gloninger with CBS affiliate KCCI in Des Moines quit his broadcast job after 18 years in the business, citing a string of harassing e-mails and a death threat over his climate coverage. Later that month, Avery Tomasco, a meteorologist for CBS Austin News in Austin, Texas, dodged a sucker punch in a road rage incident caught on his dash cam.
Now, this being Autoblog, we’ve seen our share of anger on the highways and byways. Even so, this incident has got to be one of the silliest to turn into an assault charge. As the footage shows, Tomasco was merging onto one of the feeder roads that run next to Texas highways. The other driver, in a Toyota Prius, pulled into Tomasco’s lane. Being totally fair, even if we understand the sentiment, Tomasco could have done a better job of braking as the Prius moved over. But these things happen, oh well.
When the Prius driver didn’t stop immediately, Tomasco followed him for a while until the Prius driver pulled into a mall parking lot. Tomasco, who had his young daughter in the car, said he got out to take photos of his car and didn’t speak to the man in the Prius. As Tomasco was doing this, the man in the Prius walked up to him and swung. The meteorologist moved his head in time to have only his cheek grazed while his shoulder took the real punch. Recounting the event on Twitter, he wrote, “I yelled for help and got away from him as quickly as I could, and thankfully an off-duty police officer was nearby to help calm the situation and keep the peace.”
Road rage never wins. The idea of trying to sucker punch a stranger in Texas and not doing a good job of it, then having the whole thing put on the Internet, has to be one of the all-time ways to lose. Tomasco tweeted, “Because of clear video evidence, I’m able to press charges and he will have an arrest warrant issued soon. He will be taken to jail in the near future. His insurance will also have to fix my bumper and who knows what else.” His advice to all, “Ladies and gentlemen, BUY A DASHCAM. Buy. A. Dashcam. And use it religiously.”
