A driver was jailed after allegedly ramming the vehicle of a woman who flipped him off in a road rage incident.
The woman said that at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday she had been northbound on U.S. 301 at County Road 462 and traveling behind a black Jeep Wrangler, when the driver of that vehicle “hit his brakes hard,” according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. She proceeded to pass him while giving him the middle finger.
Initially, the Jeep Wrangler was stuck in traffic, but she checked her rearview mirror and saw the black Jeep Wrangler “driving at a high rate of speed” coming up from behind. She “was scared that the Jeep was coming for her,” the report said. She turned onto County Road 106 in Oxford in an attempt to get away from the Jeep, which passed her and while passing her “intentionally struck her vehicle along the rear driver side.” The driver of the Jeep stopped in the middle of the roadway at the intersection of County Road 106 and County 107 “in an attempt to keep her from driving.” He stepped out and struck the passenger side of her vehicle.
The woman got away and called 911.
A deputy arrived on the scene and found scuff marks on the rear driver side quarter panel of her red SUV.
“The scuff marks were consistent with that of being hit while making a right hand turn while being passed at a close distance,” the deputy wrote in the report. He added that the scuff marks appeared to have been caused by “off-road type tires that were on the Jeep.”
In addition, the passenger side mirror of her vehicle was folded in as if someone “had struck her vehicle …. in an attempt to make her stop.”
The driver of the Jeep was identified as 54-year-old Todd Jeffrey Tundis of Belleview. The Michigan native was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated battery and misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief. He was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center on $10,500 bond.
