BOARDMAN — Boardman police dealt with three separate incidents of road rage Tuesday. Two of them involved guns.

It all started about 1 p.m. when an officer responded to Sheetz at the corner of U.S. Route 224 and Southern Boulevard. There, a woman told them a man antagonized her about an hour earlier when she didn’t move fast enough after a red light changed.

According to the police report, she said she was at the red light near the convenience store about 11:45 a.m. The woman said she is a cautious driver, and because she has seen people run red lights, she waited for a second or two before proceeding through the intersection.

She said the man behind her, a bald white man in a black GMC Sierra pickup truck, began honking and screaming at her. When she started moving, she said the man continued yelling profanities out his window and sped up alongside her, at which point she gestured back.

The report states she said he then sped around in front of her and stopped his truck. She said she knew better than to stop, so she pulled around him into the other lane and drove away. As she passed he said something about her “being sorry.”

The woman said she wanted to alert police in case the man did it again, and she provided his license plate number.

The report states that the license plate came back to a Boardman man with a previous report for aggravated menacing for a similar incident on Route 224 in 2022. Court records do not indicate any charges were filed.

Just before 4 p.m., police responded to 888 Boardman-Poland Road, where a driver stopped to wait for them after reporting being threatened with a gun.

The report states the man was headed west on Route 224, near West Boulevard, when an older white man with gray hair, driving a white Jeep Grand Cherokee, cut him off in traffic and then pulled up beside him, flashed a gun and said, “If I see you again, I’m going to blow your head off.”

The man said he thinks the other driver was enraged by his “Free Palestine” bumper sticker. Police were able to track the license plate back to an Austintown man.

At 8:40 p.m., police were back at Sheetz, where a man told them he had been threatened on Mathews Road by a man with a gun.

The report states the incident began in the area of Midlothian and Shirley Road. The man told police that a black man in an older model Chevy Impala or Malibu nearly collided with him and he beeped at the Chevy driver. The driver beeped back and yelled “I will pop you!”

The report states that as the man proceeded into Boardman via South Avenue, he turned onto Mathews and noticed the driver was still behind him. As he approached Glenridge Road, the angry driver pulled into the oncoming traffic lane beside the man and flashed a gun at him. The man said he sped up to get away from the driver, called 911, and headed to Sheetz to wait for police.

If caught, the driver faces a charge of aggravated menacing.

Boardman police could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Sergeant Matt Abbey of the Ohio State Highway Patrol Canfield Post said road rage incidents are not overly common, but when they do occur, they happen quickly.

While OSHP deals with more incidents on freeways than on highways like Route 224, he said the rules for handling an irate and aggressive driver are always the same — do not engage.

“I would caution anyone to not engage in a confrontation,” he said. “They want a response, and if you give them one, they’re going to react to that. If they want an argument, let them argue with themselves.”

Abbey said that while cutting people off in traffic is one common trigger for road rage, incidents often are spontaneous and depend much more on the aggressor than the victim. Not driving as fast as the person wants to drive or not moving through a red light fast enough for them also are good examples.

In short, if the person wants a reason to be irate and abusive, they’re likely to find one regardless of how cautious or vigilant other drivers may be.

Abbey said it is usually best to just let them pass. If that does not work and their behavior continues, pulling into a busy storefront is the next best step. If the person continues to antagonize, calling 911 is the best course of action.

He said if a gun is involved, people should try to get away and immediately call 911. He said going to a business is preferable to letting the person give chase with a gun on the open road.

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