Harmless prank or a dangerous, road-rage inducing prank that can go wrong?
Bay Area commuter and Redditor /u/Tiberius_Jim shared headshaking dashcam video from earlier last week (June 29, 2025) to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing a car full of teens throwing water balloons at other vehicles.
Check out his dashcam video embedded below with the original Reddit thread linked here.
[OC] Idiot teenagers hitting random cars on the freeway (including mine) with water balloons.
byu/Tiberius_Jim inIdiotsInCars
The incidents took place on a stretch of Highway 4 that started out near the city of Pittsburg (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As OP’s video shows, a Saturn Aura driven and occupied presumably by teenagers, can be seen approaching OP’s car from behind and hurling what looks like water balloons at his vehicle.
They hit hard enough he initially thought they were water bottles but, on further observation, they were liquid filled balloons.
OP confirmed later on that, despite other’s concerns it might be a paint-eating chemical, his car the next day showed no signs of paint damage.
OP’s car wasn’t the last and likely wasn’t the first as the teens can be swerving in and out of traffic to toss water balloons at other vehicles.
Fed up, OP called emergency services and reported the incidents.
Despite following as close as safely possible for a couple more minutes, OP took his exit and never saw the teens pulled over.
Towards the end of the video, OP does say, despite the teens seemingly running out of water balloons and “settling down,” the other victims weren’t quite through with them.
‘“Some of the other cars they hit appeared to still be pursuing them.”
“One day, they gonna find out, because they f***ed around,” the top comment from /u/shiggins114 reads.
“In a Saturn Aura? I regret to admit that I had one of those,” /u/burner7711 added.
“Amateurs. You don’t attack cars where you can’t escape. They’re going the same direction as you. All the people they hit are surely following them”
“I mean, you don’t attack cars at all, but this is just stupid beyond stupid,” /u/GerardWayAndDMT shared.
“Yeah, that black SUV you see at the end was in full-on pursuit mode,” OP replied.
In California it’s a misdemeanor, a violation of CVC 23110, to throw any substance at vehicle, even if it’s just water.
Violators hit with a misdemeanor charge are most often given a summary probation sentence but can also get up to six months in jail on top of a fine up to $1,000.
If the object you threw was dangerous, like a solid brick, that misdemeanor gets upgraded to a crime.
And, if you threw that dangerous object with malicious intent to harm, congrats, it’s now a felony.
Water balloons might sound like a harmless prank but it can potentially distract a driver into an accident or worse, cause that driver to road rage back at you, potentially causing life altering damage ala accident or pew-pew.
You don’t know what’s going on in someone’s mind and you just might find out in the worst way possible.
