Woman shot at during road-rage incident near Third Ward, police say

HOUSTON – A woman was shot at during a road rage incident in south central Houston Wednesday, according to police.

Houston mother narrowly avoided death or injury in a road rage incident when her seat belt deflected a bullet.

She asked that her name not be revealed because the shooter is still at large.She was headed home around 6 p.m., and was pulling onto Hwy 288 at Old Spanish Trial in heavy traffic.She was on a northbound freeway ramp that narrows from two lanes to one when it happened.

“So when it got closer to getting to one lane, this car on the right side tried to get in front of me but he hit my side mirror.” She said.“I moved more to the left to see what was going to and the next thing I heard was a pow, a shot. I felt the pain on my right side and my hips," she said.

She thought she had been shot, but her seat belt saved her.

The bullet went through her passenger door, but was deflected when it slammed into her seat belt buckle.

Officials said she was bruised but unhurt.

"I got home and my kids were hugging me and I realized I could be gone, I could be dead," she said.

The other driver in a black Chevy Malibu with dark tinted windows sped away.

It’s the latest incident in a series of road rage shooting incidents that are increasing nationally and in Houston.

According to a non-profit that tracks gun-involved road rage incidents, thetrace.org, the number of cases more than doubled between 2014 and 2016 from 247 to 620.

The non-profit Gun Violence Archive ranks Houston as third in the nation for those incidents in the same time period, just behind San Antonio with 27, and Memphis, TN with 28.

The Houston mom who survived Wednesday’s incident counts herself lucky not to have become a statistic.

On a busy Houston Wednesday afternoon, this woman almost became a statistic.

It's terrible that it’s (gotten) to that point where people can’t drive and, because if I had seen him, I would have slowed down and let him go past. But I didn’t see him," she said.But she’s hoping someone did see him.

Houston Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $5000 for information that will lead police to that black Chevy Malibu and it’s driver before it happens again.

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