Most kids are lucky. The modern era of human history is the safest yet. So most children never have to witness the lengths their parents would go to protect them. But when a Redditor asked the forum, “What is the worst road rage incident you’ve had or witnessed?” the question dredged up an incident that one commenter could never forget.

First and foremost: the storyteller didn’t grow up with a violent father. In fact, you might call his old man mild-mannered. He said, “My dad is an electrical engineer, very smart, very quiet, very nice.”

During his freshman year of high school, the morning commute took his dad to two different schools. The older boys were twins, just starting 9th grade. The little one was three, and dad would drop him off at preschool in the same trip.

On one fateful morning, the four of them climbed into the truck and began the usual drive. Then things got a bit odd, “We’re rolling down an outer road at 40 mph and this car comes blasting over the hill at light speed.”

The dad didn’t try to block the driver or attempt any other ill-conceived maneuver. He made the safe choice: pulling onto the shoulder so the other car could pass as quickly as possible. But as the speed demon flew by the truck filled with his family, the dad did give him the old “stink eye.” And the judgment didn’t sit well with the other driver.

The quick car completed the pass. But sure enough, the family in the truck caught up to him at a four-way intersection a half-mile up the road. The driver of the car recognized the truck, so he made eye contact with the dad, pulled out a gun, and hung his hand out the window. According to the son, this driver was, “Staring at my dad in the mirror and shaking the gun up and down.”

Other cars had piled up at the intersection, waiting for the light, leaving the dad in the pickup truck blocked in. The storyteller explained, “We’re trapped by cars behind and I can see the terror and rage swell within my father in an instant.”

He acted without hesitation. And he knew he needed to deal with the firearm first. Instead of waiting for the other driver to act, he shifted the truck into four-wheel drive, then stomped the accelerator. The result is, “rammed the car in front of us, the guy dropped the gun out the window and my dad keeps it floored, pushing the car out into the intersection.”

As soon as he started the rampage, the dad stopped it too. He shifted his truck into park, leapt out the door, and snatched the fallen gun off the ground. Instead of using it to threaten the psycho driver, he threw it into the bushes. But he wasn’t done with the man. As the storyteller said, “and then let the beat down commence!” Usually the mild-mannered engineer, “on that day he was the destroyer of men and cars.”

The road may have been narrow, but that day, the lesson was clear: never underestimate a dad when his family is in danger. The gun was gone, the fight was over, but the story? It’s one his kids will remember for the rest of their lives.