We’ve seen a number of wild road rage videos in the past and covered some of the craziest but this one is a bit different. In fact, it might be categorized as noteworthy only because of how anti-climactic it is in the end. One road rager did their best to escalate an altercation and found out that sometimes they have to be smarter than the door handle.
Locking door handles are nothing new. Most vehicles will automatically lock the doors after they get up to a certain speed. Usually, that limit is about ten miles an hour or less and that means that in most situations, a road rager trying to enter your vehicle at a stop light or stop sign would be stuck pulling on a non-functional handle. Tesla vehicles go one step further though.
Instead of just locking the vehicle, the handles on all Tesla vehicles stow away in one way or another and that’s what we see in the video below. Featured first on Wham Baam TeslaCam’s Twitter account, it shows one person trying to attack a Tesla driver before being completely befuddled by the lack of an accessible door handle to yank on.
Read Also: TeslaCam Captures Tesla Driver Flooring It In Front Of A Police Cruiser
There has been a lot on the news lately how dangerous the Tesla doors handles are. But – nobody ever talks about how great it is to have hidden door handles when a road rager approaches your car. It’s brilliant! @tesla @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/ZDJC221oI0
— Wham Baam Teslacam (@WhamBaamYT) June 20, 2022
What’s shocking is just how effectively this hide-away handle seems to completely defuse the situation. After violently banging on the window of the Tesla, the man goes to open the door and can’t seem to understand why it’s not leaping into his hand or why it’s recessed to begin with. Instead of calmly thinking through the situation, something that might have kept him in his car, to begin with, he just stands there, seemingly baffled.
From what we can see in the video it’s tough to say which Tesla model this is but as mentioned, all of them have handles that are flush to the body while driving. The Model 3 and Model Y have push/pull style handles where you push the front of the handle, typically with your thumb, which flips the back of the handle out, providing something to pull on.
The Model S goes one step further with little motors that extend and retract the handle completely. Of course, those handles only come out in certain situations, like when the keyholder is walking up to the vehicle or it’s already unlocked and someone presses on the handle itself. The Model X has door handles that never extend and act as door poppers. Regardless of which model it is, this Tesla obviously confused the raging man.