Highway Driver: I Was Shot at for Driving with High Beams On

Dallas police are investigating a highway shooting that the victim believes was a road rage incident prompted by her driving with the car's high beams on.

The alleged road rage incident happened just after midnight Monday on Interstate 20 near South Prairie Creek Road, between Interstate 45 and state Highway 175. It was one of two separate shootings along the same stretch of Interstate 20 over a four-day period.

"If they would have had better aim they could have killed somebody out there that night," said Gerald Pinke, who was traveling home from a funeral in Tyler with his wife when the shooting happened.

According to the police report, the passengers were headed westbound on I-20 in their Nissan Altima with their high beam lights on, when they pulled up behind an orange Pontiac Vibe.

Gerald Pinke said he was asleep and his wife, Gail, was driving when an orange Pontiac Vibe aggressively pulled in behind their car and began to tailgate them and flash its high beams.

Gail Pinke believes the only possible explanation for what could have angered the shooter was that she had been driving with her high beams on.

"I was on cruise control. I wasn't doing anything," she said. "There were not a lot of cars on the highway. [So] I tapped on the brake to let them know to get away and they got even closer. And I kind of stomped on the brake and woke my husband up."

After he woke up and his wife told him what was happening, Gerald Pinke said he told Gail to pull to the side of the highway so he could drive.

Once in the driver's seat, Gerald Pinke said he realized that the Pontiac Vibe had slowed down ahead in an apparent effort to allow them to catch back up.

Even in the darkness, Gerald Pinke said he could see someone gesturing toward him through the window of the sport utility vehicle.

"They were talking and I was telling them to pull over," Gerald Pinke said about what was happening when they heard the bang.

Pinke thought it was a gunshot; his wife was more confident of what had just happened.

"They shot at us," Gail Pinke said Tuesday, standing in front of the bullet scar that tore across the passenger side of her maroon Nissan Altima, a matter of inches away from where she was seated at the time.

The Pinkes then dialed 911 and followed the suspects at a safe distance, before losing them off the St. Augustine exit.

"I wanted to see them get caught. I still want to see them get caught," Gerald Pinke said.

The Pinkes' story is thought to be the latest of two separate shootings along the same stretch of Interstate 20 over a four-day period.

The first shooting was reported around 3:30 a.m. April 18, along the 40700 block of Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway, just east of where I-20 meets state Highway 67, according to a Dallas police report.

In that incident, a 19-year-old passenger was shot in the leg by an unknown gunman, the police report states. The bullet came through the front passenger door.

NBC 5's Ben Russell contributed to this report.

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