HOUSTON – A driver who was involved in a road rage incident now says he has regrets about how the incident played out.
It happened Tuesday evening along 59 just south of 2090.
Lucas Martin, 25, was driving home with his girlfriend and their 1 and a 1/2 year-old son when they say Armando Montes sped up behind them.
“I looked at Summer and said look at this guy he’s hauling butt behind us he flew up behind us threw up the finger we kinda smirked and laughed,” Martin said.
Montes told Splendora Police that Martin had cut him off as he was trying to enter the highway.
“I don’t know that we cut him off there’s a chance that we might have, I still don’t think that response was necessary,” Martin told KPRC 2 News Wednesday.
Martin says things escalated when Montes started throwing bottles at their vehicle. That's when Martin began recording on his cell phone and his girlfriend called 911.
"I think us recording and pulling up next to him may have irritated him more," Martin said.
The video shows Montes side-swipe Martin's car and swerving all over the road.
"Chill out bro, I got a kid, I have a baby in the car," Martin is heard saying in the video.
But he says his words had no effect on Montes.
"He responds, ' I don't give a (expletive)' and then come to find out he has a 7-year-old child in the back seat," Martin said.
Martin said he was terrified for his family and for other drivers on the road. It turns out he was right to be concerned as the video shows Montes swerving across three lanes, striking a motorcyclist.
Splendora Police say the man on the motorcycle suffered broken bones but is expected to make a full recovery. Martin says he would have done some things differently in hindsight, but still isn’t convinced things would have turned out better.
"We shouldn't have kept up with him but I didn't know what else to do, I'd never been in that situation.
I regret recording while I was driving because he was being reckless, but here I am doing something that is reckless too. I would try to find a way to stop, but when you stop, you have the fear of how do I protect my family if he turns around," Martin said.
Montes, who was out on bond for DWI with a child in the car, is now in the Montgomery County Jail charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated injury to a child.